The BRRRR strategy has one job: recycle your capital. You buy below market, renovate, rent, refinance, and pull your money back out so you can do it again. Whether that cycle works — and how well — comes down to three numbers: your Maximum Allowable Offer before you bid, how much cash comes back after the refinance, and how much stays trapped in the property.
Most BRRRR calculators answer one of those questions. The better ones answer two. Very few model all five phases of the cycle — acquisition, rehab, operating, refinance, repeat — in a single worksheet with the holding costs that accumulate during the rehab period baked in.
This is a comparison of the four main BRRRR calculator options available in 2026: a purpose-built spreadsheet, a subscription deal analysis app, the BiggerPockets free tool, and the most popular Etsy template. The focus is on what each tool actually computes, where each one stops, and whether the price makes sense for your deal volume.
Disclosure: I built the Shopfolio BRRRR Calculator and sell it for $29. The other tools in this comparison are evaluated based on publicly available information. Features I was unable to verify are marked with a question mark.
Before the comparison, here are the five functions that distinguish a tool built specifically for BRRRR from a general rental property calculator that happens to include an ARV field.
| Feature | Shopfolio ($29) | DealCheck Plus ($10/mo) | BiggerPockets (free) | Etsy template (~$17) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MAO calculator (70% rule) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Itemized rehab budget tracker | ✓ | ? | — | — |
| 12-month cash cycle (holding costs) | ✓ | — | — | — |
| LTV scenario table (3 options side-by-side) | ✓ | ? | — | — |
| Cash-left-in-deal verdict | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Repeat-ready capital summary | ✓ | — | — | — |
| DSCR check at refi | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Lender defaults tab (editable) | ✓ | ? | — | — |
| Works offline | ✓ | — | — | ✓ |
| Property data lookups / comps | — | ✓ | — | — |
| One-time price | $29 | $120/yr | Free | ~$17 |
| 5-year cost | $29 | $600 | $0 | ~$17 |
✓ = included · — = not included · ? = feature not documented on public site; unable to verify without a paid subscription. DealCheck Plus pricing ($10/mo) based on their public pricing page as of May 2026 — verify current rates at dealcheck.io before purchasing. Table reflects publicly available information as of May 2026.
One-time purchase · Excel + Google Sheets · Instant download
Built specifically for the BRRRR strategy, not adapted from a general rental calculator. Nine tabs model the full cycle from MAO through the repeat-ready summary. The differentiating feature is the 12-month Cash Flow Cycle tab, which tracks operating cash flows month by month from acquisition through stabilization — including the holding costs (loan interest, taxes, insurance) that accumulate during the rehab phase.
The Refi Scenarios tab shows three LTV options side-by-side (70%, 75%, 80% by default, all adjustable) so you can see how LTV affects cash returned without running the numbers three times. The Summary tab outputs cash-left-in-deal and capital-recycled percentage directly, without navigating tabs.
On a verified worked example ($200K ARV, $98K purchase, $35K rehab, 7.5% refi): all-in out-of-pocket $54,110, refi returned $46,795, cash left in deal $7,315, capital recycled 86.5%, stabilized cash flow +$56/month.
Strengths
Limitations
Subscription · Web app + mobile · BRRRR analysis included
DealCheck is a web-based deal analysis platform that includes BRRRR as one of its analysis modes. Its primary advantage over a spreadsheet is automated property data: it can pull comparable rents and property details from public records, reducing the manual research required on each deal. For investors closing a high volume of deals — evaluating fifteen to twenty properties per month and needing comps quickly — that automation has real value.
The BRRRR module covers MAO, cash-out refi math, and cash-left-in-deal. From the information available publicly, I was unable to confirm whether it includes an itemized rehab budget tracker, a multi-LTV scenario table, or a month-by-month holding cost model during the rehab phase. These are marked as unknown in the comparison table.
At $10/month, DealCheck costs $120/year or $600 over five years. If your deal volume justifies the comps and data features, the subscription earns its price. If you analyze one to three BRRRR deals per year and supply your own ARV research, the subscription adds cost without adding analysis depth for your use case.
Strengths
Limitations
Free · Web only · Basic analysis
BiggerPockets offers a free BRRRR calculator on their website. It handles the core inputs — ARV, purchase price, rehab estimate, rent — and produces basic output. For a first introduction to the BRRRR concept, it works. For actual underwriting before making an offer, it falls short on depth.
It does not model holding costs during the rehab period, does not show multiple LTV scenarios, and does not output a repeat-ready capital summary. The cash-left-in-deal metric is not clearly surfaced. For someone running their first BRRRR deal and needing to understand how the math works, it is a useful entry point. For underwriting a real offer with a lender-ready number, it leaves too much unmodeled.
Strengths
Limitations
One-time · Excel · Various sellers
Several Etsy sellers offer BRRRR-themed spreadsheets priced around $17. Based on a review of the most popular listings, these tools are typically general rental property calculators adapted to include an ARV field and an MAO estimate. They cover the acquisition and hold phases but do not model the rehab-to-refi cycle with holding costs, multiple LTV scenarios, or a cash-left-in-deal verdict.
The $17 price is below Shopfolio, but the analysis depth reflects a general-purpose template rather than a purpose-built BRRRR tool. For an investor focused on standard buy-and-hold rentals who wants a budget option, the $17 template covers cash flow modeling. For BRRRR specifically — where the refinance math and holding cost accuracy determine whether the strategy works on a given deal — the missing components matter.
Strengths
Limitations
The metric that most basic BRRRR calculators understate is total cash invested — because they stop at down payment plus rehab. They skip the costs that accumulate while you own the property but cannot rent it yet.
On a five-month rehab project, the holding costs typically include:
Total: roughly $900–$1,200/month × 5 months = $4,500–$6,000 in holding costs.
Example: You model a deal where you put in $120K (purchase equity + rehab) and a 75% LTV refi on a $200K ARV returns $150K. Basic calculator shows $10K left in deal. Add five months of $950/month in holding costs ($4,750) and the real cash-left-in-deal is $14,750 — nearly 50% higher. That difference changes whether you have enough freed capital to start the next cycle next quarter or whether you need another six months to accumulate reserves.
The 12-month Cash Flow Cycle tab in the Shopfolio calculator models these costs month by month — from the acquisition close through the refi close — so cash-left-in-deal reflects what you actually spent, not a simplified version of it.
Timeline matters: each additional month of rehab adds approximately $900–$1,400 in holding costs depending on your carrying rate. Build a one- to two-month contingency into your rehab timeline before modeling final cash-left-in-deal.
For buy-and-hold investors who close one to three BRRRR deals per year, the one-time vs. subscription comparison is straightforward.
The subscription is the right call if you close twenty or more deals per year and use the comps and data-lookup features actively on each one. For everything below that volume, a one-time spreadsheet that you own indefinitely is the cost-efficient choice.
Here is a complete BRRRR cycle modeled using the Shopfolio calculator. All numbers are Python-verified.
86.5% capital recycled means $46,795 of the original $54,110 out-of-pocket is back in your hands to deploy on the next deal. The remaining $7,315 stays in the property as permanent equity. Note: the DSCR at 1.05x does not clear the 1.20x–1.25x minimum most lenders require at 75% LTV. To qualify the refi in this example, the investor would need to either reduce the loan to 70% LTV ($140K, lower payment), accept a lower loan amount, or negotiate a higher-NOI outcome (higher rent, lower expenses). The calculator flags this: if your DSCR comes in below threshold, the deal requires adjustment before the refi works.
High deal volume with comps automation needed (15+ deals/year): DealCheck Plus earns its $120/year through automated rent estimates and property data. The analysis depth of the BRRRR module is unconfirmed on some features, but for an active acquisition pipeline the platform's data integrations have real value.
Buy-and-hold investor doing 1–5 BRRRR deals/year: Shopfolio at $29 is the rational choice. Full 5-phase cycle, holding cost model, 3 LTV scenarios, cash-left-in-deal verdict. Yours forever. $571 cheaper than DealCheck over five years.
Learning the concept / pre-commitment research: BiggerPockets free calculator works. Run a deal through it to understand the mechanics, then use a purpose-built tool for actual offer underwriting.
Budget-only: The $17 Etsy template covers basic cash flow. For BRRRR specifically, the missing holding cost and refi scenario modeling means the cash-left-in-deal number will be incomplete. If budget is the constraint, start with BiggerPockets free.
Full 5-phase cycle · 12-month cash flow model · 3 LTV scenarios · Cash-left-in-deal verdict · $29, yours forever.
Download BRRRR Calculator — $29If the spreadsheet doesn't work for your situation, email orders@shopfolio.store. I fix it or refund it.
Cash left in the deal. This is the amount of your original out-of-pocket investment that remains trapped after the cash-out refinance. If you invested $54,000 and the refi returned $46,000, you have $8,000 left in the deal — meaning you recycled 85% of your capital to deploy on the next cycle. The goal is to get this number as close to zero (or negative, meaning you pulled out more than you put in) as possible. A calculator that only shows total cash flow or CoC return without showing cash-left-in-deal is missing the BRRRR strategy's core metric.
A regular rental property calculator projects ongoing cash flow — what you'll net per month given rent, expenses, and a mortgage. A BRRRR calculator models the acquisition-to-refinance cycle: it starts with your purchase below market value, runs through the rehab phase (including holding costs during construction), models the cash-out refinance at multiple LTV scenarios, and shows how much capital you recover versus how much stays in the property. The key outputs — MAO, cash-left-in-deal, and capital recycled — don't exist in a standard rental calculator.
At $10/month (DealCheck Plus), a subscription costs $120/year or $600 over five years. A one-time spreadsheet at $29 pays for itself versus a subscription after about three months. If you are closing multiple BRRRR deals per month and need automated property data lookups, comps, and portfolio management features, a subscription's added functionality can justify the cost. If you are a buy-and-hold investor running one to three BRRRR cycles per year and modeling your own numbers offline, a one-time spreadsheet is the rational choice.
Most conventional lenders require a minimum 1.25x DSCR for an investment property cash-out refinance. DSCR loan programs — which underwrite based on rental income rather than your personal income — typically set a 1.10x–1.20x floor. DSCR is NOI divided by annual debt service on the new loan. Deals that clear DSCR at 70% LTV may fail at 75% or 80% LTV because the larger loan means higher payments. A BRRRR calculator that shows DSCR across multiple LTV scenarios lets you find the highest LTV that still qualifies before you approach a lender.