Conservice is a third-party utility billing and management company that handles utility expenses on behalf of landlords and property managers. If you’re seeing “Conservice” on a bill or bank statement, it almost certainly means your landlord has hired this company to calculate, bill, and collect your share of the property’s utility costs, including water, sewer, trash, gas, electric, or internet. The company is headquartered in Logan, Utah, and works with properties across the multifamily, student housing, single-family rental, senior living, manufactured housing, and commercial sectors.
What Conservice Does for Property Owners
At its core, Conservice sits between the utility provider and the tenant. The utility company sends a master bill to the property owner, and Conservice divides that bill among individual units using one of several allocation methods. It then generates individual tenant bills, processes payments, handles move-in and move-out billing, and provides customer support in more than 20 languages.
Beyond splitting utility bills, the company offers a broader suite of property services: expense management, meter reading and maintenance, energy procurement, sustainability reporting, internet management, and data analytics. For landlords, the pitch is straightforward. Conservice handles the administrative burden of tracking utility costs and billing tenants so site teams don’t have to. The company also provides lease reviews and legal indemnification related to utility billing, helping landlords stay compliant with local regulations.
How Your Bill Is Calculated
The way Conservice calculates your charge depends on whether your unit has its own submeter or shares a master meter with the rest of the building. If your unit is submetered, you’re billed based on your actual usage, similar to how a homeowner pays a utility company directly. If there’s no submeter, Conservice typically uses a method called RUBS, short for ratio utility billing system, which splits the property’s total utility cost among tenants using a formula.
RUBS formulas vary, but they generally rely on one or more of these factors:
- Number of occupants: More people in a unit means a higher share. This is common for water and sewer charges.
- Factored occupants: A variation where each additional person after the first counts for less than a full share, since two roommates don’t use exactly double the water of one person.
- Square footage: Larger units pay more. This is typically used for heating and cooling costs like gas or electric.
- Combination (50/50): Blends occupant count and square footage into a single formula.
The formula may also adjust for unit-specific features like in-unit washers, dryers, fireplaces, or gas ranges, all of which increase utility consumption. Some properties use direct billing or custom solutions instead of RUBS, but the general idea is the same: Conservice takes a building-wide cost and breaks it into per-unit charges.
Why Tenants See Conservice on Their Bills
If you recently moved into an apartment and noticed a separate utility charge from Conservice, your landlord is using the company’s expense recovery service. This is increasingly common in rental housing because it lets property owners pass utility costs to tenants rather than absorbing them. Property managers can choose from RUBS, submetering, or direct billing depending on the property’s infrastructure and local laws.
Your Conservice charges may appear as a standalone bill, as part of a consolidated “convergent” bill alongside rent, or as a line item on your lease portal. Many properties offer an online portal where you can view your charges and pay electronically.
Common Tenant Complaints
Tenants frequently raise concerns about transparency when dealing with Conservice billing. Because RUBS divides a shared cost rather than measuring individual usage, it can feel opaque. Some tenants have reported difficulty getting itemized breakdowns of how their specific charge was calculated. A CBS 8 investigation highlighted renters who were told the company couldn’t provide a unit-level breakdown because it would reveal other tenants’ information.
Another recurring frustration involves vacant units. When a building isn’t fully occupied, the total utility cost is split among fewer tenants, which can raise individual bills even when personal usage hasn’t changed. Tenants have also reported sudden bill spikes, with charges jumping from around $40 one month to over $100 the next, without a clear explanation. Getting answers from both Conservice’s customer support and the property’s leasing office can be slow, according to renters who have gone through the dispute process.
Your Rights as a Tenant
Many states have laws governing how landlords can bill tenants for master-metered utilities. While the specifics vary, the general principle in most jurisdictions is that your landlord must disclose the formula used to allocate utility costs, either in your lease or in a separate written agreement. You typically have the right to request a copy of the actual utility bill from the provider for any billing period you’re being charged for. The total amount collected from all tenants generally cannot exceed the amount the utility company charged the property.
If your Conservice bill seems unusually high or you suspect an error, start by reviewing your lease for the allocation formula your landlord agreed to use. Then contact Conservice directly through your resident portal or their customer support line and ask for a breakdown of how your charge was calculated. If you don’t get a satisfactory answer, escalate to your property management company in writing. Keeping a record of your bills over time makes it easier to spot anomalies and build a case if you need to file a complaint with your local tenant protection agency or housing authority.