liv.rent vs rentfaster.ca

Alberta renters and landlords weighing liv.rent vs rentfaster.ca are really choosing between two different kinds of platforms: a long-running provincial listings board and a rental platform offering verification, tenant screening, digital contracts, and rent collection. This post lines up how each one handles tenant screening, identity verification, digital contracts, cost and Alberta’s rent increase rules, so an Alberta renter or landlord can pick the right tool instead of guessing.

What is rentfaster.ca?

rentfaster.ca is an Alberta-founded rental listings website where landlords advertise apartments, houses, condos and shared rooms, and renters search, filter and save results by city, price and features. It began in Calgary in 2003, expanded into Edmonton in 2005, and now lists rentals across Canada, though it still describes itself as the leading online home listing service for Alberta (rentfaster.ca, About Us page, accessed September 2026).

A Calgary-born listings board with national reach

rentfaster.ca’s roots explain what it is today: it started as a Calgary classifieds alternative and only broadened to cover the rest of Canada by 2016 (rentfaster.ca, About Us page, accessed September 2026). For an Alberta audience, that history matters less than the site’s current role, which is primarily a listings board. It connects landlords who pay to post an ad with renters who browse, filter and apply, rather than managing the relationship after that point.

What landlords get for the price of an ad

Posting a single unit on rentfaster.ca costs $54.50 plus tax for a 60-day listing with unlimited photos, or $49.50 plus tax to reactivate a previous ad; a multi-unit property runs $200 plus tax for a three-month activation or $375 plus tax for six months (rentfaster.ca, pricing page, accessed September 2026). That fee buys visibility, not screening: a credit and background check is a separate, optional add-on rather than something bundled into the listing price.

What renters get for free

Renters use rentfaster.ca at no cost. The site offers saved searches with email alerts, a side-by-side property comparison tool and a single rental application profile that can be sent to multiple landlords (rentfaster.ca, Renter Information page, accessed September 2026). Account verification exists too, but it is limited to confirming an email address and phone number, not identity or income.

What is liv.rent?

liv.rent is a rental platform built around identity-verified users, a tenant Trust Score, digital lease signing and rent collection, positioned as Canada’s safest rental platform. Renter-side use is free, while landlords choose among free and paid tiers depending on how many screening reports, ad pushes and team seats they need (liv.rent pricing page, accessed September 21, 2026).

Free for renters, tiered pricing for landlords

liv.rent’s Essentials tier is free forever and includes unlimited listings, standard digital contracts and one user seat, with screening and marketing available pay-per-use. Growth costs $48 a month billed annually, or $56 billed monthly, and adds two screening reports and two multi-platform ad pushes a month, up to three users, and enhanced contracts. Business runs $399 a month billed annually, or $490 billed monthly, with 15 screening reports and six ad pushes a month, up to 10 users, custom contracts and priority support (liv.rent pricing page, accessed September 21, 2026).

The Trust Score, defined

liv.rent’s Trust Score is a tenant-reliability score from 0 to 100, built from four inputs: credit history via Equifax (55 points), a risk assessment that draws on court records and other submitted profile details (20 points), liv.rent’s own verification of ID documents plus income and employment (20 points), and income-to-rent ratio (five points). Scores group into four tiers: Excellent (90 to 100), Very Good (75 to 89), Average (60 to 74) and Poor (0 to 59) (liv.rent, “Trust Score explained,” accessed September 2026).

Digital contracts and rent collection

Every liv.rent tier includes digital contract signing with verification IDs, plus rent collection by card, UnionPay or Bitcoin and listing syndication to Craigslist and Kijiji (liv.rent pricing page, accessed September 21, 2026). The public rentfaster.ca pages reviewed did not advertise an equivalent built-in lease-signing or rent-collection tool; the site points landlords toward free rental document templates instead.

How do liv.rent and rentfaster.ca compare on screening and verification?

The two platforms treat screening as opposite priorities. rentfaster.ca offers an optional, pay-per-report credit check that a landlord orders separately, while liv.rent builds identity verification and a combined Trust Score directly into the applicant profile. The table below compares the specific features, based on rentfaster.ca’s FAQ and pricing pages and liv.rent’s pricing and Trust Score pages, all accessed September 2026.

Credit and background checks

rentfaster.ca partners with Certn to let landlords order a credit check for $20 plus tax per report, valid for one tenant for up to 24 months (rentfaster.ca FAQ, accessed September 2026). liv.rent folds credit history into the Trust Score itself, where the Equifax component is worth 55 of the score’s 100 points, and also sells standalone Trust Score reports for $16.99 pay-per-use (liv.rent pricing page, accessed September 21, 2026).

Identity verification: for landlords only, or for everyone

rentfaster.ca’s identity verification, powered by Persona, applies to landlords only and is required before they can order a credit report; renters are not asked to verify their identity, only an email address and phone number (rentfaster.ca FAQ and Renter Information page, accessed September 2026). liv.rent verifies landlord identities through submitted ID documents, while its renter screening can include identity, income and employment verification as part of the Trust Score’s 20-point verification component (liv.rent live facts, accessed September 2026).

How do the two platforms protect Alberta renters and landlords from scams?

Both platforms review listings before they go live and remove fraudulent ones once reported, but they differ in how deep that verification goes. rentfaster.ca relies on listing review, a property managers directory and ongoing scam monitoring (rentfaster.ca FAQ, accessed September 2026). liv.rent adds manual verification of official ownership documents or mail for most listings, plus ID-verified badges for landlords, on top of the renter-facing Trust Score; a listing that has not yet completed that fuller check can still appear on the platform (liv.rent live facts, accessed September 2026).

rentfaster.ca’s approach

rentfaster.ca states that it reviews all new listings, maintains a directory of property managers, monitors for scams and removes fraudulent ads immediately once identified (rentfaster.ca FAQ, accessed September 2026). It also advises renters directly to view properties in person and verify a landlord’s identity independently, such as through a web search, rather than relying solely on the platform’s own checks.

liv.rent’s approach

liv.rent manually verifies most listings against official documents or mail before they go live, and issues ID-verified badges to landlords who complete that process, giving renters a signal to look for before they apply; a listing that hasn’t completed that fuller verification can still appear, so it’s worth checking a listing’s verification status directly on the platform (liv.rent live facts, accessed September 2026). Combined with the Trust Score on the renter side, verification runs in both directions rather than only screening the applicant.

What Alberta renters and landlords should still do themselves

No platform verification replaces basic diligence. The RCMP’s guidance on rental scams recommends viewing the actual unit in person, running a reverse image search on listing photos, asking to see a landlord’s picture identification, and never sending a deposit before a formal tenancy agreement is signed by both parties (RCMP, rental scams guidance, last updated August 2024). That advice applies whether the listing came from rentfaster.ca, liv.rent or anywhere else.

How do Alberta’s rent increase rules fit into this comparison?

Alberta sets no cap on how much a landlord can raise the rent, but it does control timing. A landlord must give at least three full tenancy months’ written notice for a rent increase in a monthly periodic tenancy, and cannot raise the rent again until at least 365 days have passed since the tenancy began or since the last increase (Alberta.ca, “During a tenancy,” accessed September 2026). Neither rentfaster.ca nor liv.rent sets these rules, but the platform a landlord uses can make it easier or harder to prove exactly when notice was given.

Alberta’s notice and timing rules, plainly

For a month-to-month tenancy, Alberta law requires three months’ written notice before a rent increase takes effect, and that notice must include the date, the increase’s effective date and the landlord’s signature (Alberta.ca, “During a tenancy,” accessed September 2026). Rent cannot increase at all during a fixed term, and once an increase does take effect, the same tenant cannot see another one for a full year. This pattern is corroborated in liv.rent’s “September 2026 Calgary and Edmonton rent report,” which restates the same three-month, 365-day rule for both cities.

Why a paper trail matters here

Because the 365-day period runs from the start of the tenancy or the effective date of the previous increase, whichever is later, both landlords and tenants benefit from a clear, dated record of the tenancy’s start and of each increase’s effective date. liv.rent’s digital contracts carry verification IDs and a signing record for the original lease by default on every tier, which documents when the tenancy began, though a separate rent-increase notice still needs to be tracked in its own right rather than assumed to be covered by that same contract record. rentfaster.ca’s free rental document templates cover the paperwork itself but rely on manual entry and storage, without a built-in verification trail.

Which platform fits Alberta renters and landlords better?

For a landlord focused on Alberta listing exposure who is comfortable adding screening tools separately, rentfaster.ca may suit that goal, paired with its separate pay-per-report credit check. For a renter or landlord who wants identity verification, a combined Trust Score and a digital paper trail built in from the start, liv.rent’s free renter tier and tiered landlord plans cover more of that ground without an extra step.

Choose rentfaster.ca when

rentfaster.ca suits a landlord whose main goal is reaching a large, Alberta-specific audience quickly and who is willing to order a Certn credit check separately when a tenant applies. It also suits a renter who is comfortable relying on their own in-person verification of a landlord, since the platform does not verify renter identity itself.

Choose liv.rent when

liv.rent suits a renter who wants a Trust Score that follows them across applications instead of a fresh credit check each time, and a landlord who wants identity verification, digital contracts and rent collection bundled into one plan rather than assembled from separate add-ons. For related reading on the screening side of this decision, see liv.rent’s guide on how to screen tenants, and for Alberta’s broader rules on notices and increases, see liv.rent’s rental laws coverage.