Buildium Customer Care: An Expert, Actionable Guide

What “Customer Care” Means at Buildium

Buildium is a Boston‑born property management platform founded in 2004 and acquired by RealPage in 2019 in a transaction valued at approximately $580 million. Its customer care model blends in‑app support, a searchable knowledge base, and plan‑based access to live agents. For property managers, that means you’ll use the application’s Help menu and the Help Center as your primary entry points, with escalations available for critical issues that impact rent collection, accounting close, or compliance deadlines.

The two official web destinations for assistance are the main site at https://www.buildium.com and the Help Center at https://help.buildium.com. The Help Center houses product documentation, release notes, and ticket submission. For sensitive matters (payment disputes, suspected account compromise), Buildium encourages contacting support from within your authenticated account to verify identity and protect data. Standard availability is during US business days; response targets and live channel access vary by subscription tier.

Support Channels by Subscription Tier and What You Actually Get

As of 2024, Buildium’s plans are typically presented as Essential, Growth, and Premium, with publicly listed starting prices of approximately $55/month (Essential), $174/month (Growth), and $375/month (Premium). Pricing scales with unit count and optional services (e.g., ePay/ACH, 1099 e‑filing), but these figures are a reliable baseline for planning. Customer care scales alongside: higher tiers get faster routing and more live options.

Essential generally focuses on self‑service and ticket/email support via the Help Center. Growth adds faster routing and, in many cases, access to live chat during business hours. Premium emphasizes priority handling and phone assistance, often with callbacks arranged through the queue to reduce hold times. If your operation depends on same‑day resolution for collections or move‑in/move‑out accounting, the incremental cost of Growth or Premium is frequently offset by reduced downtime and fewer workarounds for your team.

How to Reach Support the Right Way

Use the fastest, most verifiable entry points

The most reliable path is from inside Buildium: click Help in the top navigation and choose Contact Support or Get Help. This routes your case with your account context and permissions, which reduces back‑and‑forth. If you cannot access the app, go to https://help.buildium.com and use the “Submit a request” link. For security, avoid sending sensitive financial details by email; attach redacted statements or share specific transaction IDs found in your ledger.

If you believe there’s a platform‑wide issue (ACH delays, login problems), first check the system status page that’s linked from the Help Center before opening a ticket. If the incident is acknowledged, subscribe to updates; this prevents duplicate cases and gives you time‑stamped notices for your owners and residents.

Composing a Ticket That Gets Resolved on the First Pass

Details that cut resolution time in half

High‑quality tickets are specific, reproducible, and include artifacts. Tell support exactly where you clicked, which entity was impacted, and the expected result. If the issue is intermittent (e.g., resident portal timeouts), capture the approximate time window and the network environment (office vs. home, VPN on/off). Screenshots with the full URL and visible timestamps help triage quickly.

• Product path: Menu and page names (e.g., Accounting > Banking > ePay batches)
• Scope: Number of units/residents affected; one profile vs. portfolio‑wide
• Identifiers: Property ID, resident ID, bank account nickname, batch ID, or transaction ID
• Timestamps: Exact local time and time zone of the failed action or error message
• Error copy: The full wording of the error or a screenshot; include browser and version
• Recent changes: New user roles, bank changes, imports, or integrations in the last 24–72 hours
• Business impact: Can’t collect rent, can’t close period, compliance deadline at risk

Phone, Chat, and Callback Etiquette That Speeds Resolution

When you reach a live agent, start with authentication details ready: your company name as it appears in Buildium, your role, and a callback number. If your plan includes phone support, ask the agent to attach your call notes to the existing ticket number to keep a single case history. For complex accounting issues, request a screenshare session; arriving with a prepared resident/property list and your GL account numbers significantly shortens the call.

If a callback is offered, confirm time zone, best number, and a 2‑hour window. For recurring or multi‑tenant issues (for example, multiple owners not receiving 1099s), ask for the incident to be linked to a master problem record so you’ll automatically receive resolution notices. This is especially useful in January when 1099 e‑filing deadlines compress response windows to the IRS’s January 31 cutoff.

Priorities, Outages, and Escalations

Buildium typically triages cases by severity: platform outages and payment processing disruptions are treated as critical (priority 1), followed by data integrity/accounting issues (priority 2), feature questions (priority 3), and how‑to guidance (priority 4). If your case affects cash flow (e.g., ACH batches stuck) or compliance (e.g., bank reconciliation preventing month‑end close), state that explicitly; it can elevate routing and engage specialized teams such as payments or accounting.

During an outage, rely on the status notices linked from the Help Center and re‑check before retrying failed tasks like batch posting or resident portal payments. If your ticket remains unresolved and materially impacts operations, ask the agent to escalate to a supervisor or product specialist and request a documented action plan with the next checkpoint, even if the immediate fix is pending a code change.

• Escalation triggers: Failed ACH/credit card settlement, data loss risk, blocked close or e‑filings
• What to request: Ticket number, current severity, owner team, and next update time
• Attachments to add: Reconciliation reports, batch IDs, and redacted bank statements for the affected dates

Training, Onboarding, and Preventing Repeat Tickets

Many “support” requests are solved upstream with training. The Help Center at https://help.buildium.com includes product guides for leasing workflows, ePay setup, maintenance, and trust accounting. Pair those with internal SOPs: for example, document how your staff posts rent, handles NSF returns, and closes periods. A one‑page SOP with screenshots can cut new‑hire error rates by double digits and reduce your ticket volume in the first 90 days.

If you’re adopting Buildium or upgrading tiers, schedule onboarding sessions offered with Growth and Premium. Use those hours to import your chart of accounts correctly, define property‑level settings, and set roles/permissions. Properly configured roles prevent accidental GL edits and reduce “fix my books” support cases later. For seasonal crunch times—January 1099s, summer move‑ins—pre‑read the latest Help Center articles two weeks in advance so your team is aligned on any UI or rule changes.

Plan Selection: Tying Care Level to Business Risk

For portfolios under 150 units with predictable accounting cycles, Essential plus disciplined SOPs and the Help Center can be sufficient at roughly $55/month. Once you cross the threshold where a single day of failed payments or delayed move‑ins meaningfully impacts owner trust or cash flow, consider Growth (around $174/month) to gain faster routing and live chat. At 500+ units or with heavy in‑month leasing, Premium (around $375/month) typically pays for itself via reduced downtime and priority access to experienced agents.

Whichever plan you choose, measure customer care like any other vendor relationship: track ticket counts, first‑response times, and time‑to‑resolution for your top five issue types. Review those monthly and update your SOPs and training accordingly. Consistent, data‑driven feedback to your team—and to Buildium via your account contacts—will steadily reduce friction and keep your operation running smoothly.