Hi Stuart
I haven’t looked at Countingup. I doubt many landlords will have income of less than £500 per month though, so they would be looking at £4.95 per month, plus the charges.
I am using Starling for my limited company, and I use an old Lloyds account for my personally owned properties. I have got them both linked to Quickbooks online files, but I get that cheaper than normal because I am an accountant. Quickbooks is in beta for MTD ITSA. Their self employed offering is £8+VAT per month.
I have also had a play with Pandle and Apari. Pandle was quite user friendly - it is not MTD ready yet though. Apari is MTD ready, but it was very clunky - I suspect they rushed it out to be amongst the first to have an MTD ITSA offering - I have conversed with them and they have plans to make it easier to use. Both of those have a free and paid offering. Eg for Pandle, in the free version, you have to upload your own bank statements, and in the paid, there is a bank feed to pull them in automatically.
I suspect MTD will be expanded to everyone eventually, but certainly, in the short term, if your rent is under £500 per month, you will escape!