One principle runs through every payment on Rentor: your money goes straight to the person you're paying. Rentor never holds it along the way.

Straight to the recipient

When you pay rent, a deposit, a stay, a service booking or an order from a seller, the money settles directly into the recipient's own account — a landlord's own M-Pesa Paybill or Till, their bank account, or a provider's or host's own M-Pesa. Rentor records the payment, matches it, and issues the receipt — but the cash itself never sits in a Rentor pot.

That also means Rentor never takes a cut of your rent. Tenant accounts are free forever. Rentor earns from subscriptions paid by landlords, agencies, service providers and hosts — see the Pricing page. Hosts and providers keep 100% of what they earn from guests and clients.

Ways to pay

• M-Pesa — the everyday way. Confirm your phone number, and an STK prompt pops up on your phone. Enter your M-Pesa PIN and the payment confirms in seconds.
• Card — a secure hosted checkout page, offered when the recipient has card payments set up. A small card-processing fee may apply; you'll see the amounts before you approve.
• Bank — also through a secure hosted checkout, when the recipient has it set up. If card and bank aren't available you'll see a note like "Card & bank aren't set up by your landlord yet — pay via M-Pesa."
• Cash — if you pay your landlord in cash, they can record it manually. It still lands on your ledger and still gets a receipt.

On the phone app: rent, deposits, stays, service bookings and lease bills are paid by M-Pesa — the same STK prompt, the same instant confirmation. You choose which phone gets the prompt; see The M-Pesa number you pay from.

Paying Rentor itself

The one payment that does go to Rentor is your subscription — and the add-ons around it: listing boosts, extra unit blocks and SMS credits.

• On the website you pay in shillings by M-Pesa, card or bank transfer. Paying by card from outside Kenya? Where it's offered, a line under the card button — "Paying from abroad? Pay in USD" — switches that one card payment to US dollars at the rate shown. Rent and everything else you pay to other people stays in KES.
• In the iPhone app plans are sold through the App Store, in your App Store currency, and Apple renews them until you cancel in your Apple Account settings.
• Boosts and SMS credits aren't sold in the phone apps. Buy them on the website and they're active in the app straight away; boost credits your plan already includes can be spent in the app.

Each role's billing guide has the detail: landlords, agencies, service providers and hosts.

Every rent payment is receipted

The moment a rent, deposit or lease payment confirms, Rentor generates a numbered receipt automatically — no asking, no waiting. You can view it or download it as a PDF any time. A stay or a service booking is confirmed on the booking itself, with a written confirmation to both sides. See Receipts & transaction history.

When something doesn't match

Rentor is careful with your money. If a payment comes back looking wrong — say the amount M-Pesa confirms doesn't match what was requested — it is held for review instead of being posted to the wrong place. You'll see it marked as under review, and you're notified once it's resolved. Delayed M-Pesa confirmations are chased up automatically until they land, so a slow network doesn't mean a lost payment.

If a payment fails outright, nothing is posted and no money moves — you simply try again.

Where each role feels this

• Tenants pay rent and deposits from their dashboard — see Paying rent.
• Landlords and agencies watch collections arrive in Rent & Payments, receipted and posted to each tenant's ledger — see Collecting rent.
• Service providers are paid per booking, to their own account — see Getting paid.
• Hosts receive stay and sublet income directly, and pay their own lease bills through the same rails — see Host lease bills.

One more comfort: your personal phone number and email are never shared between parties. Payments, messages and notices all travel through the platform.