Why Latch Is the Best Low Cost MTD Solution for UK Landlords

When most landlords hear 'MTD software', they think of tax filing tools — a narrow product that does one thing and charges for it. But Making Tax Digital is not a one-off event. It demands ongoing digital record keeping, quarterly submissions, and year-round data accuracy. A tool that only handles the filing step leaves you to manage everything else manually, or to pay for yet another platform.

Latch is not a tax-only tool. It is a full property management platform that includes MTD compliance as a core feature rather than a premium add-on. You get tenant management, lease tracking, compliance monitoring, maintenance logging, and document storage alongside your quarterly HMRC submissions — all from a single dashboard. For landlords who want to stop juggling spreadsheets, accountant portals, and filing software, that consolidation changes the economics entirely.

This article explains exactly what Latch offers at each pricing tier, how the total cost of ownership compares to alternatives, and why a property management platform with built-in MTD beats a tax tool with bolted-on features every time. Whether you manage one buy-to-let or a growing portfolio, the numbers make a compelling case.

Free Tier: What You Actually Get

The word 'free' gets thrown around loosely in the software industry, so let us be precise about what Latch's free tier includes. These are not limited-time trials or feature-gated previews. They are permanent, fully functional capabilities available to every free account:

• MTD quarterly submissions to HMRC
• Income and expense recording with HMRC-compliant categories
• Compliance tracking for 14 certificate types across all UK jurisdictions
• Tenant contact management with role-based categorisation
• Lease creation and tracking with rent schedules
• Payment recording and rent tracking by property and tenant
• Property and unit management for up to 3 properties
• Document storage and uploads linked to properties and tenants
• Maintenance request tracking with status workflows
• Mobile-responsive web application accessible from any device

There is no credit card required to sign up and no trial period that expires after 14 or 30 days. Your free account remains active indefinitely with full access to every feature listed above. You will never receive an email warning you that your access is about to be downgraded or that your data will be deleted.

For landlords with one to three properties, the free tier is genuinely all you need to meet your MTD obligations and manage your rental business. That is not a marketing claim — it is a reflection of how the product is designed. Latch was built for UK landlords first, and the free tier was designed to cover the essentials that the majority of small-scale landlords require.

Pro Plan: Where Value Multiplies

At £20 per month, Latch Pro is priced below most general accounting tools — and it includes capabilities that those tools charge extra for or simply do not offer. Xero's Growing plan costs £15/month but has no property management features; add a property-specific integration and you are already at £25-35/month. QuickBooks Essentials at £22/month requires manual workarounds for anything landlord-specific. Neither includes compliance tracking, maintenance logging, or tenant management.

The value calculation becomes even clearer when you consider what Latch Pro replaces. Instead of paying for MTD software plus a property management tool plus a compliance tracker plus a tenant database, you pay £20/month for a single platform that does all of it. For a landlord with 10 properties, that works out to £2 per property per month — less than a cup of coffee, and less than any competitor charges for a comparable feature set.

Total Cost of Ownership: Latch vs Competitors

The most meaningful comparison is not just the monthly subscription price. It is the total annual and multi-year cost of achieving the same outcome: MTD compliance combined with functional property management. Here is how Latch compares across different portfolio sizes:

GoSimpleTax is the cheapest option for pure tax filing at £40 per year, but it offers zero property management features. You still need a separate tool (or a spreadsheet) for tracking tenants, leases, compliance certificates, and maintenance requests. Once you factor in the cost and time of managing those workflows outside your tax software, the effective cost rises substantially. For landlords who want an all-in-one solution, Latch Pro at £240 per year delivers the lowest total cost of ownership with no per-property surcharges, no essential add-ons to purchase, and no gaps in your workflow.

Landlord Studio's pricing is competitive at the single-property level but scales poorly due to its per-unit charge structure. At 10 properties, you are paying £300 per year and still lack AI-powered categorisation. Over five years, that adds up to £1,500 — the same as Xero and 25% more than Latch Pro, which includes AI automation, unlimited properties, and a broader feature set.

What Makes Latch Different from Tax-Only Tools

Tax-only MTD tools solve one problem well: they get your numbers to HMRC. But they leave everything else to you. Latch solves the entire landlord workflow, from the moment a tenant moves in to the moment you file your quarterly return. Here is how the feature sets compare:

The comparison makes clear that tax-only tools are exactly that — tax tools. They are not designed to help you manage properties, track compliance, or communicate with tenants. If you are already using a separate property management system, adding a tax-only MTD tool creates yet another platform to maintain. Latch consolidates both functions into one, which means fewer logins, fewer data entry points, and fewer opportunities for errors.

Real Landlord Workflows

Understanding how Latch works in practice is more useful than a feature list. Here is what a typical quarterly MTD workflow looks like for a Latch Pro user:

1. Bank transactions auto-imported: Open Banking pulls transactions from your connected accounts daily. Each transaction appears in your Latch dashboard, ready for review.
2. AI categorises expenses: Latch's AI engine analyses each transaction and assigns it to the appropriate HMRC-allowable expense category — repairs and maintenance, insurance, letting agent fees, and so on.
3. Review and approve categorisations: You review the AI's suggestions, approve the correct ones, and adjust any that need a different category. Most landlords report that 85-90% of categorisations are correct on the first pass.
4. Generate quarterly summary: At the end of each quarter, Latch compiles your income and categorised expenses into the format required by HMRC for your quarterly update.
5. Submit to HMRC via MTD: Submit your quarterly update directly to HMRC through Latch's MTD-compliant connection. No bridging software required, no manual re-entry of figures.
6. Filing confirmation stored automatically: Your submission receipt and confirmation are stored in Latch against the relevant quarter, creating a permanent audit trail.

The entire process takes most landlords 15-30 minutes per quarter once bank feeds and AI categorisation are doing the heavy lifting. Compare that to the 4-8 hours that manual quarterly filing typically requires, and the time saving alone justifies the Pro subscription.

Getting Started in 5 Minutes

Setting up Latch for MTD compliance is designed to be fast. Most landlords are fully operational within a single sitting:

1. Sign up free at uselatch.co.uk — no credit card, no trial period, no commitment.
2. Add your properties with addresses, purchase prices, and mortgage details. Latch auto-detects jurisdiction from your postcode.
3. Connect your bank account (Pro plan) via secure Open Banking to start importing transactions automatically.
4. Record existing income and expenses for the current tax year. You can import historical data via CSV or enter it manually.
5. Submit your first MTD return when the quarterly deadline arrives. Latch walks you through the process step by step.