Where BeTenant's money comes from, and where it doesn't

Renters are used to being the product. So here is exactly how this works, including a part we haven't built yet.

The core of BeTenant is free for every renter and stays that way. Logging issues, the tamper-evident record, the deadline tracking and the essential letters are not going behind a paywall, because those are the things that protect you. A paid tier for extra tools funds the rest.

Some lines we will not cross:

• We take no money from landlords, letting agents or the lettings industry.
• We will never sell your evidence, your documents, or anything that identifies you or your home.
• Your individual data is never shared with anyone who could use it against you. Full stop.

Here is the part we want to be upfront about before we build it. Renting is broken partly because nobody can see the pattern. One renter with damp is a private problem. Ten thousand renters logging damp in the same postcodes is evidence. Over time, we want to take what renters record, strip out everything that identifies anyone, and turn it into anonymised, aggregated insight: where disrepair clusters, where illegal evictions spike, where deposits go unprotected. We want to put that in the hands of councils, researchers and the people working to fix this, and some of them may pay for it. That funding goes back into keeping the core free.

To be clear about what that is and isn't. It is counts and patterns across areas, never your individual record. It is never sold to landlords, agents, or anyone who would target renters. It is the opposite of surveillance: it is renters' collective experience, made visible, so the problem can no longer be denied.

We are telling you this now, before it exists, because you should get to weigh in on it. If you think we are getting the lines wrong, tell us. That is genuinely the kind of thing we want to hear.