Convex Alternatives for Contractors (2026): 7 Options Compared

Say you run a commercial landscaping company with four account managers around Columbus. Each quarter, they need 300 properties with grounds your crews can maintain, close enough to fit existing routes, plus a way to reach whoever approves the contract. Seventy-five properties each. Start the purchasing decision there.

For that job, my first choice among Convex alternatives is Ground Control by PorchRocket. It finds buildings by property type and visible features, then delivers a file your team can work. Owner information and decision-maker contact are optional add-ons. The sales team keeps its current process and buys the next territory when it needs one.

Convex deserves a precise comparison: it already targets commercial service companies, and it also sells data licensing. The choice depends on how much ongoing research and sales management you want to buy. These seven options cover that decision, with November 2026 buying terms and a cost model that includes the hours spent qualifying addresses.

How we compared Convex alternatives

For four account managers who already have a CRM, I compare the cost of receiving fitting buildings, finding buyers and starting outreach.

Start with the buying requirements:

• Building selection: can you specify lawns, planting beds, rooftop HVAC, paved parking areas, docks or a roof age band?
• Buying unit: are you paying for matching buildings, software access, measurement work or contact records?
• Commitment: can you buy one campaign, and what term does the proposed subscription require?
• Handoff: can your team start from a file in its existing system, and how much setup remains?
• Buyer research: can you add an owner or decision maker at the property you want to service?
• Delivery and correction: when does the list arrive, and what happens when a building fails the agreed filters?

This comparison uses published offerings and a worked purchasing model to rank the options for a team that needs a fresh territory each quarter, already has a sales process and wants its reps spending more time with buyers.

Option	Purchase and published cost in November 2026	Job it addresses	What to resolve for a trade campaign
Ground Control	$10 to $20 per commercial building; add-ons extra	Best for trade companies finding buildings by visible features	Choose the filters and contact research; delivery within 48 hours after payment
Convex	Quote-based platform and data licensing	Property-centered commercial sales research and activity	Obtain the scope, price and term for the specific purchase
SiteRecon	Scout $39 per month; Growth $250 per month, both at monthly billing	Measurements and takeoffs for named properties	Account for finding the properties and reaching their buyers
ZoomInfo	Quote-based sales packages	Company and contact intelligence	Connect contacts to service locations that fit your work
Apollo	Basic published at $49 per user per month, billed annually	Contact research and outbound sequences	Budget for qualifying the physical buildings
Shovels	Basic $599 per month, one seat	Permit and related property research	Check local coverage and whether permit activity suits the campaign
Reonomy	Monthly or annual access; confirm amount at checkout	Ownership, property and transaction research	Price exports and the remaining visible-feature screening

Official links and the limits of each purchase appear in the individual comparisons below. Start with the broader contractor prospecting tools guide if you are also choosing an outreach tool or CRM. Here, the first decision is which buildings deserve your account managers’ attention.

Ground Control for buildings selected by visible features

The fastest way to start a defined commercial prospecting campaign is to order fitting buildings from Ground Control by PorchRocket and load the delivered file into your sales process. Filter by business type, building size and the features your trade serves: lawns and planting beds, rooftop HVAC, paved parking areas or older roofs. Commercial records cost $10 to $20 per building, with owner information and decision-maker research priced separately. Delivery is within 48 hours after payment, often sooner. Wrong matches reported within 30 days receive a credit back. These are target accounts whose owners have not requested a quote.

For the Columbus landscape team, begin with commercial properties with lawns and planting beds in the areas your crews already serve, keeping office campuses separate from warehouses when the scope you want to sell or the buying role you plan to approach differs. Work one route first.

An HVAC service department can instead select buildings with rooftop HVAC, including 2+ or 5+ visible units. A roofer can combine membrane roofs with the 10+ year roof age band and building size. Paving and cleaning teams can start with paved parking areas or a particular business type.

Every property says why it matched. The rep has a starting point. Ground Control sends only properties it is 90%+ sure match the requested criteria; imagery is never older than two years when the order runs.

Orders start at 10 buildings, with no platform contract. A 50-building test therefore costs $500 to $1,000 before add-ons, using the published commercial range. Review Ground Control pricing for your chosen area before paying. I would expand after the team has worked that batch.

Choose Ground Control when you want the next territory delivered as a working file.

What Convex does and how its pricing works

Convex combines property-centered prospecting with sales activity tools, and its current product site identifies the business as part of ServiceTitan.

The Convex product page describes territory maps, property and contact filters, ownership and permit history, campaign boards and CRM connections. Its intended customer includes commercial service sales teams. Calling Convex a generic broker database would miss the comparison.

Convex also advertises data licensing. Its Target offering supports searches beginning with properties, businesses or people. A buyer seeking data for an existing process should ask about that option alongside the platform.

The reviewed Convex product and data pages publish no dollar rate. Treat Convex pricing as quote-based, then ask for the purchase you need: four account managers working the specified territory, using the requested property criteria and delivery format, with the term and charges outside the base scope written into the quote. Price the data license separately.

The drawback for our landscaping example is the buying decision left unresolved by those pages. The owner still needs a price for the quarterly workload and evidence that the selected fields identify the desired grounds. A territory map, permit record or contact profile does not by itself answer that purchasing question.

I would send Convex and any other finalist the same 50-address evaluation request, specifying what qualifies and what counts as a duplicate, then ask each vendor to show the requested building criteria in the record the rep will receive. Time the work that remains.

There is no reason to assign value to campaign boards if your account managers already record their work elsewhere. There is a reason to pay for them if they replace work the manager does every day. Put those saved hours in the comparison.

Pick it if your team wants ongoing property research and sales coordination, or a scoped data license that passes the same building-level buying test.

When a platform adds more work than you need

A four-manager team buying 300 new addresses each quarter should justify a second sales workspace through hours saved or additional gross profit from signed accounts.

Start with the current routine. One manager assigns territories, reps record calls, and the estimator receives the sites that have agreed to a walk. If those handoffs already work, the missing input may be buildings worth approaching. A file can fill that gap.

Give the proposed setup work an owner. If the sales manager must import current customers, decide which stages to use, map fields into a second system and train the reps before the first campaign can start, charge those hours to the purchase being evaluated. Write down the hours.

For a small campaign, I would also ask how often each paid user will search. A rep who needs a fresh territory each quarter has a different requirement from an analyst researching several markets every morning. Buying seats for everyone can conceal the option of one researcher supplying the team, where the vendor’s terms permit it.

The decision rule is straightforward: pay for ongoing access when its repeated use earns back the commitment. Pay for a list when the team needs a defined batch and already has a place to work it. Our sales intelligence guide for contractors separates building selection from managing the resulting sales activity.

SiteRecon for takeoffs and grounds estimates

SiteRecon fits landscape estimating departments that already have property addresses and need measured surfaces or takeoffs to prepare a scope and price.

Its Scout instructions describe ordering a takeoff by entering an address and selecting a measurement package. The current pricing page lists Scout at $39 per month for one user on monthly billing. Growth lists $250 per month at monthly billing, with two users and $200 in monthly measurement credits. Extra Growth users start at $39 per month each. Growth and the higher team plans require a 12-month commitment even with monthly billing; Scout monthly has no long-term commitment.

The limitation for the opening example is the starting point. The landscape owner asked for suitable properties to approach and the person who approves service. Measuring a named property solves a later part of that job. Keep acquisition research in the budget even if estimating becomes faster.

I would hold the measurement order until a buyer has discussed the serviced boundary and the timing of a proposal, because ordering a detailed takeoff for every address spends estimating money before the team knows which accounts it can reach. Wait for that conversation.

Confirm the grounds boundary. Ask the buyer to mark the areas included in the agreement and save the exclusions in the estimate file, especially when a lawn or paved area beside the building belongs to a different property or has a separate maintenance arrangement.

For the buying decision, compare SiteRecon with your estimating workload. Compare Ground Control with your prospect research workload. A grounds contractor may have a reason to buy both, but their costs belong to different stages of the account.

Pick it if your bottleneck is producing measurements and estimates for identified properties, especially for recurring grounds work.

ZoomInfo for company and contact research

ZoomInfo suits a sales team researching companies and business contacts, while a trade campaign still needs to connect those contacts to fitting service locations.

The ZoomInfo pricing page offers custom B2B data packages for prospecting and other sales tasks, available through its platform or delivered into another workflow. Buyers request pricing for their scope. Get a written quote for four users and the records you need, including contact access and exports.

For an HVAC seller, the unanswered question after finding a facilities contact is which sites that person can authorize you to service. Check unit count and dispatch distance. Those property checks belong in the research budget even when the contact record has the right job title and a working phone number.

I would use a contact database after identifying the target properties, or after a conversation reveals a larger owner portfolio worth pursuing. Searching for another decision maker at a known account has a defined purpose. Exporting everyone with a facilities title creates a new assignment for the reps: determine which names connect to buildings they can serve.

This distinction matters in a Convex vs ZoomInfo comparison. Convex’s published approach starts at the property; ZoomInfo’s published sales packages center on companies and people. Test the records against the same list of desired service locations before assigning value to a larger contact count.

Our ZoomInfo alternatives for contractors comparison examines that building-to-buyer handoff in more detail.

Pick it if you already know the companies or property portfolios you want and need broader contact research across those accounts.

Apollo for contact lists and outbound campaigns

Apollo offers contact research and outbound sales tools at a published entry rate that can suit a small team with its building targets already established.

Apollo’s official plan explanation states Basic at $49 per user per month billed annually. Four seats therefore cost 4 x $49 x 12 = $2,352 before extra usage. The pricing page describes email sequencing and contact access, with credits paying for various data activities.

That low access cost deserves a place in the comparison. The gap for a trade owner is the remaining property work. The published sales workflow does not establish that a record meets your exact lawn, roof, loading-dock or rooftop-equipment requirement. Ask for evidence of those fields before counting a contact as a fitting building.

For the Columbus team, I would start with the property file and use contact research to fill missing buyer information. Count buildings separately from contacts. Two people at the same industrial campus give you two possible routes to one account.

Watch the handoff into outreach. Before enrolling a batch in a sequence, have the account manager explain why each property belongs in the campaign and what the first conversation should establish, such as the serviced grounds boundary or the next review of an RTU maintenance agreement. Read the first message aloud.

Pick it if you want a lower published software entry cost for contacts and outbound activity and can supply the building qualification yourself.

Shovels for permit-driven prospecting

Shovels provides permit and related records for teams selecting opportunities around documented property activity, with Basic listed at $599 per month for one user.

The Shovels pricing page includes downloadable records on Basic and provides web and API access through a shared credit balance. Its coverage dashboard lets buyers examine jurisdictions and recent permit receipt. Check your counties first.

For the four-manager landscape team, permit research introduces a timing requirement that may be unnecessary. The owner wants properties that fit a maintenance route, including established grounds. If the campaign only admits sites with a selected permit event, ask what fitting properties that rule leaves out.

Read the permit first. Use its work description and dates to establish what remains to be bought at the property, then ask who controls that next purchase before routing a maintenance offer to the name that happens to appear on the record.

I would use permit activity as a second research layer when the selling reason depends on a change at the property. For a recurring lawn route, begin with the physical service opportunity. For a campaign tied to recent construction, add the permit evidence and record why the event changes the proposed approach.

If the purchased terms allow one research user to prepare and distribute a file to the account managers, price that arrangement alongside individual access for each rep, especially when only one person will be searching permits and preparing the next batch.

Pick it if a documented permit event is part of your qualification rule and the coverage check supports your territory.

Reonomy for ownership and property research

Reonomy addresses commercial property ownership and record research, and its 2026 purchasing options include monthly access rather than only an annual commitment.

The Reonomy pricing page describes monthly and annual subscriptions, property attributes, ownership intelligence and contacts. It also offers CSV data feeds and API delivery. Its May 27, 2026 release announced direct purchasing with monthly, three-month and annual options. Confirm the current checkout amount and exports for the plan you select.

A property record starts the research. Ownership information can tell you where to investigate the buyer, but the location still needs to pass your trade’s qualification rule, which may require visible grounds or equipment information that is separate from the owner’s holdings or the building’s construction year. Test the requested fields directly.

I would use Reonomy when tracing an owner across several properties is the research assignment. If an account manager needs a fresh group of buildings with visible planting beds in one route area, buying that selection directly fits the workload more closely.

Keep ownership and service responsibility as separate questions during the call. Ask who approves the grounds contract at the specific address and whether that person handles other nearby sites. Record the answer before assigning another rep to the portfolio.

The Reonomy alternatives guide covers the ownership-research purchase alongside delivered property lists.

Pick it if ownership relationships and property records drive your daily research and you will use the subscription often enough to justify it.

What 1,200 target buildings cost over 12 months

Ground Control’s published commercial range puts four quarterly batches of 300 buildings at $12,000 to $24,000 annually, before contact add-ons and sales labor.

Use the Columbus team’s annual workload for this planning model. Count each property once. Value staff research time at $46 an hour, including pay and employer costs, and separate the work of qualifying 1,200 fitting addresses from the contact research and selling expenses that come after the buildings have been selected. Amounts are US dollars before tax, with no negotiated discounts. Keep the existing CRM cost outside the comparison because the team retains it under every option.

For a delivered list, allow two minutes per building for intake and assignment: 1,200 x 2 / 60 = 40 hours. At $46 an hour, that is $1,840. Ground Control’s selection-and-intake total becomes $13,840 to $25,840.

For a workflow that still needs manual building qualification, assume 2.5 candidate records examined for each accepted address and 12 minutes per candidate to check the location and duplicates, then review whether the physical property fits the service offer. The arithmetic is 1,200 x 2.5 x 12 / 60 = 600 hours, or $27,600. Apply that workload where manual selection remains.

Purchase for the annual campaign	Access or records	Building-selection labor in this model	Annual subtotal before contacts and outreach
Ground Control	1,200 x $10 to $20	40 hours x $46	$13,840 to $25,840
Convex platform or data license	Written annual scope price, C	Measured hours, H, x $46	C + $46H
SiteRecon Growth with four users	From ($250 + 2 x $39 starting add-on rate) x 12 = $3,936	$27,600 if the manual selection workload remains	From $31,536, plus measurement usage beyond the allowance
ZoomInfo sales package	Written annual scope price, Z	$27,600 if the manual selection workload remains	Z + $27,600
Apollo Basic with four users	4 x $49 x 12 = $2,352	$27,600 if the manual selection workload remains	$29,952, plus extra usage
Shovels Basic with one researcher	$599 x 12 = $7,188	$27,600 if the manual selection workload remains	$34,788, plus extra usage
Reonomy selected subscription	Annualized checkout and export amount, R	$27,600 if the manual selection workload remains	R + $27,600

The software packages also buy other work, such as outreach tools or takeoffs. Credit those benefits where the team will use them. The comparison above prices the route to the required addresses; it does not assign those other capabilities a resale value.

At the high end of Ground Control’s range, the modeled advantage over four Apollo seats plus manual research is $29,952 - $25,840 = $4,112. At the low end, it is $16,112. Staff time creates that difference. One Apollo researcher instead of four users would reduce its access cost to $588 a year, if that arrangement meets your needs and terms.

Test the threshold. Against the $25,840 Ground Control subtotal, four-seat Apollo leaves $25,840 - $2,352 = $23,488 for building research. At $46 an hour, the break-even point is about 510.61 hours, rounded to two decimals. If your team qualifies the same buildings faster, its selection subtotal can be lower. Convex’s price and measured hours must likewise satisfy C + $46H below your Ground Control total to win that cost test.

Finally, add the contact gap for each option. Ground Control owner and decision-maker research cost extra; other packages may already supply some contacts. Price only the missing work. I would select Ground Control for the modeled quarterly workload, then use the first 50 buildings to replace the labor assumptions with our own timings.

How much can two fitting landscape accounts return?

Two signed grounds accounts can support substantial prospecting spend when the contracts carry recurring gross profit and the list targets properties large enough for that scope.

For a separate first-quarter return model, take 300 Ground Control buildings at the top of the published range: 300 x $20 = $6,000. Use in-house buyer research and budget 130 staff hours at $46: 10 for intake, 24 for contact research, 48 for outreach, 24 for site walks including travel, and 24 for proposals. Total acquisition spend is $6,000 + $5,980 = $11,980.

Target industrial or medical campuses that could support a $118,750 annual grounds agreement. Assume a 32% gross margin after direct service labor, materials and travel. That leaves $118,750 x 0.32 = $38,000 per account per year before overhead.

Use 80% annual retention over a five-year horizon, with the same scope and gross margin each year and no price increases or discounting. Assume a signed account pays for its first full year and each renewal adds another full year. Expected paid years are 1 + 0.8 + 0.64 + 0.512 + 0.4096 = 3.3616. Customer lifetime value, expressed as expected gross profit here, is $38,000 x 3.3616 = $127,740.80 per signed account.

Ground Control campaign outcome	Signed accounts from 300 buildings	Acquisition cost per account	Expected five-year gross profit, rounded	Net lead-list ROI, rounded
Low case	1, or 0.33%	$11,980	$127,741	966%
Base case	2, or 0.67%	$5,990	$255,482	2,033%
High case	4, or 1.33%	$2,995	$510,963	4,165%

Lead-list ROI means expected account gross profit minus acquisition spend, divided by acquisition spend. In the two-account case: ($255,481.60 - $11,980) / $11,980 is approximately 20.3257, or 2,033% rounded to the nearest percent. The size comes from the service scope and repeat years. Only two of the 300 targets sign.

Work backward from those two signatures: plan for eight proposals, 12 site walks and 45 buyer conversations. The assumed stage rates are 15% of 300 buildings reaching a buyer conversation, 26.67% of those conversations reaching a site walk, 66.67% of walks reaching a proposal, and 25% of proposals signing. The middle rates are rounded; the counts drive the model. Assign 12 conversations to one manager and 11 to each of the other three. A grounds prospect with a tiny scope should leave this campaign before it consumes a site walk.

Use the lead-list ROI calculator with your own contract size and margin. Halving the annual scope halves the expected account gross profit. Before approving a larger list, compare the first proposals with the contract value used in the model and check the route costs in your commercial landscaping contract plan.

Using lists with the CRM you already have

Ground Control delivers CSV and Excel files with import layouts for SalesRabbit and SPOTIO, plus help mapping fields for HubSpot and other sales tools.

Preserve the reason for the match. Keep it beside the building address and business type, with an assigned rep responsible for the record. Add owner information or researched decision-maker details when ordered. After outreach, the rep records the outcome and a dated next action.

Separate the physical location from the buying organization. One manager can approve several properties, and several contacts can be involved at one site. I would retain a stable property reference in the working file and connect the buyer to it, so a contact change does not erase the building’s history.

Use HubSpot’s import documentation to choose identifiers that let you update records without duplicating them and associate contacts with the right company, then test five rows containing an existing company and a new contact before loading the full batch. Inspect those records first.

At the rep level, keep the required update short: person reached, responsibility confirmed, current service arrangement and next buying date. The manager should be able to distinguish an unanswered call from an account that fits but renews later. Those two records need different follow-up.

For HVAC teams, the commercial HVAC prospecting guide carries the building selection into a service-agreement conversation. Ask about equipment records and maintenance scope once you have permission for a site visit. For landscaping, request the serviced grounds boundary and the next contract review date before preparing the proposal.

Public properties need their own opportunity feed. Bid Control by PorchRocket finds work from local governments and school districts for your trade and area. Bid papers stay with the due dates and addenda. Keep that bidding work alongside the private-account campaign so the account managers can pursue both.

When another tool is the better buy

A platform or specialist database can be the better purchase when the work you need extends beyond receiving a defined list of fitting buildings.

• Choose Convex when reps will use property research and shared sales activity daily, and its scoped price clears your hours-saved test.
• Choose SiteRecon when you already have the sites and estimating measurements are delaying proposals.
• Choose Apollo or ZoomInfo when the property targets are settled and the missing work is contact research or outbound execution.
• Choose Shovels for a permit-triggered campaign, or Reonomy when tracing ownership is the central research task.

I would keep those purchases narrow. Buy enough access to perform the identified job, then measure whether that job gets done. For the four-manager team seeking its next quarterly territory, Ground Control remains my first purchase.

How to test a Convex alternative in 30 days

Run one 50-building test before expanding to 300 properties, using the same qualification rules, staffing budget and follow-up dates for every option you evaluate.

1. Days 1 and 2: write the account rule. Pick a service area around an existing route and one offer, such as annual grounds maintenance. Specify the acceptable building types and visible features. Set the minimum contract scope your estimator needs to justify a site walk.
2. Day 3: clean the territory. Remove current customers, active opportunities and accounts already assigned to another rep from your working candidate pool. Preserve a separate list of shared owners so that two managers do not approach the same buyer independently.
3. Day 4: order the Ground Control test. Select 50 commercial buildings with lawns and planting beds in the chosen area, at $10 to $20 a building. Review any owner or decision-maker add-ons before paying. The file arrives within 48 hours after payment. For HVAC, substitute the 5+ visible rooftop-unit filter.
4. Days 5 to 8: time the competing workflow. Ask your other finalist to produce the same qualification fields for a comparable territory. Record total candidate records examined and staff minutes needed to reach 50 fitting buildings. Keep any takeoff or outreach work in separate columns.
5. Days 8 to 10: audit and import. Check the delivered reasons for matching against the account rule. Report wrong Ground Control matches within the 30-day credit window. Test five records in the CRM, resolve duplicate handling, then assign the accepted properties to reps.
6. Days 11 to 20: reach the buying role. Use the building-specific reason for outreach and ask who manages the service agreement. Save the answer and the next buying date. Track attempts and conversations separately so the manager can identify whether missing contacts or weak follow-up is holding the campaign back.
7. Days 21 to 25: qualify the site walks. Arrange visits for buyers who will discuss a scope or future review. Have the estimator confirm the serviced areas, access and route implications. Compare the first proposed annual values with the account value assumed in the budget.
8. Days 26 to 30: choose the next purchase. Calculate data and research cost per fitting building, then cost per buyer conversation. Carry open proposals forward; a 30-day test need not force a contract decision. Expand the source that produces fitting accounts at a cost your expected gross profit can support.

For the first contact, I would use a short request rather than a full sales presentation:

We maintain commercial grounds in your area. Who handles the lawn and planting-bed contract at this property? I’d like to understand the serviced area and when you next review the agreement.

Once the buyer answers, record the boundary and buying date in the same property record so a second rep can pick up the account without asking the owner to repeat the conversation or sending an estimator out with the wrong scope.

Build your next commercial territory with Ground Control

Use Ground Control to select properties around your crews’ routes, then give each account manager a defined territory and the buyer research needed to begin outreach.

Ground Control commercial lists give this campaign six things to work from:

• Buildings in the geography and business types you select for the campaign.
• Building size and the selected visible features, such as lawns, planting beds or rooftop HVAC.
• A reason each property matched, so a rep can understand the selection before researching the account.
• Optional owner information and decision-maker contact, including role and available contact details; no charge for a contact we do not find.
• CSV and Excel delivery for your existing sales process, with the import support described above.
• A price shown before payment, delivery within 48 hours after payment, and credit back on wrong matches reported within 30 days.

Begin with a free account and no card to start. For several markets, a whole state or a requirement outside the standard filters, use the custom property-list request to scope the work.

Give the four managers their next fitting properties and put the saved research hours into buyer conversations.