CoStar Alternatives for Contractors (2026): 8 Options Compared

Say a three-rep HVAC sales team sets aside $11,700 a year for research seats. With $2,835 in annual gross profit per new maintenance account, it needs five new accounts to cover that budget from first-year service work alone. Outreach still has to be paid for. That is where I would start a CoStar alternatives decision: customer lifetime value against customer acquisition cost, or LTV:CAC.

CoStar prices require a sales quote, so put your own offered commitment into that calculation. Before renewing, decide whether your research must support a property transaction that depends on lease comparables or help a service rep identify buildings that fit the crew and reach the person buying the work. Price that job.

Ground Control by PorchRocket is my first pick for that second job. It selects buildings by service features and charges per building. The eight options below include CoStar as the benchmark, plus seven alternatives with different reasons to buy them.

How we compared CoStar alternatives for service companies

Ground Control ranks first on the criteria I would use for a trade company’s prospect list: the cost of delivered matching buildings and the qualification work left for staff.

This comparison ranks published product descriptions and buying terms for a service-prospecting workflow. The staff test comes next: have the providers work the same sample addresses, then time the qualification your people must do before assigning those buildings to a rep.

I would put these questions on the purchasing sheet:

• Can I select the roof age band, visible rooftop equipment or outside feature that makes a building worth serving?
• Can I buy a defined set of buildings without committing to an annual platform license?
• What must my staff still investigate before the first sales call?
• Are owner information and the relevant decision-maker contacts available, and how are they charged?
• Can the resulting file load into the sales tools we already use?
• What happens when a building fails the agreed selection criteria?

Ground Control meets those buying priorities with $10 to $20 commercial building records, delivery within 48 hours after payment and credit back on wrong matches reported within 30 days. Its files import into SalesRabbit and SPOTIO. We also help map CRM fields.

The table distinguishes advertised access from a delivered service list. Before using a published subscription price in your budget, check whether the named plan includes the exports and contact allowances required for your campaign, because those can change the total you need approved. The vendor sections link the terms.

Option	Best fit for the buying task	Current buying model	What to resolve for a service campaign
Ground Control	Trade companies finding buildings by service features	$10 to $20 per building; contact add-ons	Set the territory and exact match criteria
CoStar	Commercial property and transaction research	Sales quote; scope and term in the license	Demonstrate your selection fields and permitted workflow
LoopNet	Browsing space marketed for sale or lease	Free browsing; paid property advertising	Build a territory list beyond the listings you browse
Crexi	Listings and commercial property research	Select: USD 299 monthly or USD 269 per month billed yearly; Standard and Enterprise by sales contact	Price the tier that includes your export requirements
Reonomy	Ownership, entity and portfolio research	Monthly or annual seats; dollar rate through purchase or sales	Include the required export package
CompStak	Lease and sale transaction comparisons	Exchange free for approved contributors; enterprise access quote-based	Establish product eligibility and relevance to service sales
Cotality	A specified property dataset for a data program	Product-specific sales quote	Specify fields, geography and delivery
Regrid	Parcel mapping and property-record research	Pro $10 monthly or $100 yearly; Team $20 per user monthly	Budget feature qualification and contact research

The broader commercial property data provider guide explains the categories. Here, the purchasing unit is a building your crew can sell to.

1. Ground Control for buildings that fit your trade

Ground Control is the best CoStar alternative for service companies that want buildings selected by visible service features, with a defined price per matching building.

For commercial HVAC, select building type and size, then rooftop HVAC present, 2+ or 5+ visible units. For commercial roofing, select roof age band, material and building size. Paving companies can select properties with paved parking areas. Dock service can start with loading docks on the building types it serves.

Every row explains why the building matched. The rep starts Monday with selected addresses and spends the next selling hour opening a service conversation.

Commercial orders start at 10 buildings. The price is $10 to $20 a building, with lower per-building costs at larger order sizes and the exact total shown before payment. Owner information and decision-maker research are priced separately. Where found, decision-maker details include a name, role, email, phone and LinkedIn information. We never charge for a contact we do not find.

For the 300-building campaign, I would start with buildings with rooftop HVAC in a serviceable territory. A roofing team should use the commercial roof list. Keep the search tied to the work your company can deliver repeatedly.

These are target accounts whose owners have not requested quotes. Assign the rep now. Put that person’s name beside the next contact date so the sales manager can tell who is responsible when an account needs a second call or an agreed survey has not been scheduled.

Keep public buildings in their own pipeline. Bid Control by PorchRocket for HVAC work finds public opportunities and keeps bid papers and addenda with the due dates. A school district’s solicitation needs a bid process alongside your private-building outreach.

Pick Ground Control if you want the fitting-building list delivered and your staff focused on opening service accounts.

CoStar’s research job and the service qualification gap

CoStar combines commercial property and transaction research, while a service campaign still needs proof that each selected building fits the work your crew sells.

Its Owners module connects owner portfolios and investment activity with contacts, property records and lease or sale comparables. CoStar’s product menu also includes listings and market analytics. Those ownership tools give a service rep connections to investigate at the selected property.

Price the configuration through sales. The terms of use revised in July 2026 make the applicable license agreement part of the buying framework and address subscription fees and midterm cancellation. Have the offered term and renewal date beside the quoted total when you compare it with a one-time building order.

For an HVAC rep, the test is whether the proposed workflow identifies the buildings with the requested visible unit threshold. For a roofer, test the roof material and age band needed for the campaign. Ask to see the result on your own sample addresses. I would not purchase on the assumption that a broad property field answers a narrower service question.

Separate the fields. Put construction date and current roof age on different lines of your buying sheet, then do the same for the warehouse category and the rooftop-unit threshold so a broad match cannot silently replace the service requirement you asked for.

The shortfall for a service company is the remaining qualification work. Count those staff hours even when the software already supplies an owner contact. A phone number at a building outside your service criteria still consumes the rep’s time.

Pick CoStar if transaction research and portfolio analysis are recurring jobs your company will use alongside prospecting.

2. LoopNet for properties being marketed

LoopNet is a narrow, free starting point for browsing commercial space, but a contractor needs a broader selection process to build a recurring service territory.

The LoopNet overview says people looking for space can browse listings free. Its paid offers market properties to buyers and tenants. Advertising pricing follows the listing package and purchase route. Paying for that exposure serves the property seller or leasing effort.

CoStar Group’s brand directory confirms that CoStar and LoopNet belong to the same group. Changing from one to the other changes the product you use, rather than the corporate family behind it.

For service prospecting, listing activity is one possible signal to investigate. I would check a listed building for a defined opening offer, such as a roof survey before occupancy or a service review for a new manager. Then I would verify who is responsible for buying that work.

The longer-term problem is territory design. Your preferred retail center can fit the HVAC agreement even when nobody is trying to sell or lease space there. Start with only the advertisements you find and you leave that selection question unanswered.

A listing contact also needs a role check before the sales office assigns an estimator to prepare a maintenance proposal for someone whose responsibility at that address has not been established. Ask who buys service. Record the referral separately.

Pick LoopNet if you are researching a specific marketed property or exploring space for your own operation.

3. Crexi for commercial listings and property research

Crexi combines marketplace access with paid commercial research, making the plan’s export and contact allowances the first things a service buyer should price.

The current Crexi Intelligence plan table lists free marketplace access. Select is USD 299 monthly, or USD 269 per month billed yearly, a $3,228 commitment for 12 months. Standard and Enterprise direct buyers to sales. Select lists ownership information alongside property and transaction records; property-data export appears among Standard’s additions. Check the contact credits too.

That plan distinction matters more than comparing a low advertised entry price with a delivered building file. Ask Crexi to quote the research and delivery workflow your campaign requires. Include the users who need access.

The service qualification question remains separate from commercial deal analysis. I would ask a rep to show the exact address set for a route of retail properties with 5+ visible rooftop units. For a paving team, I would specify the property types and paved parking feature before evaluating research screens.

Time the remaining feature checks on your sample addresses. Put that labor in the campaign budget alongside the subscription and exports.

For a team that also buys premises or researches transactions, there is a second job to put in the business case. Track it separately so the service department pays for the work it receives.

Pick Crexi if you want marketplace research and property intelligence together, and the quoted plan supports your required workflow.

4. Reonomy for owners and connected portfolios

Reonomy is an ownership-research alternative to CoStar, particularly when the question is which properties connect to an owner and which contacts are associated with that ownership.

The Altus Group Reonomy overview describes connected ownership portfolios and associated contacts. Its current pricing page offers monthly and annual access. Monthly lists an export add-on; annual lists 1,000 monthly exports. Obtain the purchase total for your required seats and exports; the page does not display a dollar rate.

Monthly access deserves a separate quote for a short ownership-research assignment. Compare its export package with the annual option before choosing the term.

For a trade company, ownership depth becomes more valuable after selecting the buildings. Suppose your target is a retail center with several visible rooftop units. An ownership connection can suggest other properties to investigate. Each additional address still needs its own service-fit check and a current buying-role confirmation.

Count buildings and owner groups separately. Check each related address for service fit before adding it to the prospect list; one ownership connection can cover buildings with very different maintenance needs.

Ground Control’s owner and decision-maker add-ons address the contact task within a building order. Reonomy deserves consideration when you want your staff doing ongoing ownership investigations across many properties. The Reonomy alternatives comparison examines that choice in more detail.

Pick Reonomy if ownership connections and repeated portfolio research drive the purchase.

5. CompStak for lease and sale comparables

CompStak fits transaction-comparison work, with a membership model that a service contractor should check before treating it as a free prospecting database.

CompStak Exchange is free for approved commercial brokers, appraisers and researchers who contribute transaction information in return for credits. Its site identifies CompStak as independent and privately held. The current enterprise product names are CompStak One and One Connect, with lease, sale, property and loan data plus analytics. Enterprise access is sales-led, without a public dollar rate on that product page.

For an ordinary service-sales assignment, the mismatch begins with the question being answered. A lease comparison can support a property transaction discussion. The HVAC estimator needs an equipment inventory and access to the person who approves service. A roofer needs the roof system and an agreed survey scope.

I would not assign transaction-research spending to a maintenance sales campaign unless somebody can identify the recurring decision it supports. Write that decision down before comparing subscriptions.

If a separate property division needs comps, let that division assess market coverage and the appropriate product. The service team can then buy its target-building work against its own account goals. That makes the budget review clearer when one department gets daily value and another logs in occasionally.

Pick CompStak if your regular job requires lease or sale comparables and you qualify for the appropriate access model.

6. Cotality for a specified property-data program

Cotality belongs on the list when a buyer needs a defined property dataset, with field selection and delivery requirements that justify a data purchase.

CoreLogic announced its global rebrand to Cotality on March 24, 2025. Those names refer to successive identities of the company. They should not appear as two separate alternatives in a 2026 comparison.

For this buying decision, examine Cotality Property Characteristics. It combines U.S. residential and commercial parcel records with current ownership and mailing fields. Structural attributes and transaction history are included. Available delivery methods include API and bulk files. Pricing depends on the geography and volume requested, plus history and delivery frequency, so obtain a product-specific quote.

Name the person doing qualification. Between receiving the dataset and assigning a fitting building to a rep, someone must apply your selection rules and verify the requested features, then connect the property with the buying role and prepare the sales file.

A distributor planning a continuing multi-market data operation can put staff against those jobs. A two-person service sales office should cost them before choosing the same route. Ask for a field sample and specify what each row must establish.

I would write the acceptance sheet around the proposed campaign. For dock service, each accepted address needs the requested loading-dock feature and the right building type. A large file containing unrelated property attributes does not settle that requirement.

Pick Cotality if you have a defined dataset requirement and the people to build and maintain the resulting workflow.

7. Regrid for parcel maps and record exports

Regrid is the low-cost parcel-research option here, especially when your team wants to control the mapping and qualification work itself.

The Regrid Property App offers parcel boundaries, ownership and mailing information, filters such as land use, and field notes. Its plan documentation lists Pro at $10 monthly or $100 yearly, and Team at $20 per user monthly. The documentation includes 5,000 spreadsheet rows per month with Pro. Confirm the requested fields at checkout: Regrid’s product page separately describes downloads priced by volume and fields.

A records subscription can therefore cost far less than buying hundreds of matching buildings. Price the qualification next. A service list needs a repeatable reason for accepting each address and a buying contact, with one rep responsible for the next action.

For a small territory, I would time the process on a sample, starting with the record and logging every minute spent investigating the service feature through the final decision to accept or reject the address. Count rejected properties too. Those hours belong in the budget.

Regrid is also a reasonable choice when you already know which sites you want to research. In that case the task is parcel lookup rather than discovering all the fitting buildings. Keep those assignments separate when evaluating the price difference.

The 300-building model below shows why a cheap record source can still require a larger labor budget. It also gives the screening-speed threshold at which doing the work yourself becomes cheaper.

Pick Regrid if parcel research is the task and your staff can handle the remaining qualification at a measured cost.

What does a 300-building campaign cost?

A 300-building Ground Control order costs $3,000 to $6,000 before contact add-ons; the comparison changes when records require many hours of feature qualification.

Continue the HVAC team’s model with 300 target buildings. Assume a records-first search needs 1,250 candidates to produce those 300, a 24% acceptance rate. Screening takes eight minutes per candidate. The staff cost is $43 per hour, including the payroll and operating allocations the owner assigns to that work.

One researcher screens the candidates and prepares the file for the three reps; the Regrid route therefore uses one Pro seat. Every route gets six hours for final review and assignment, costing $258. Ground Control’s delivered matches skip candidate screening in this model.

Screening takes 1,250 x 8 = 10,000 minutes, or approximately 166.67 hours. Calculate labor before rounding: 10,000 / 60 x $43 = $7,166.67 to the nearest cent. Add $258 for final review: $7,424.67 before access or contacts.

Route to the same 300-building list	Data or access cost used	Selection and review labor	Total before contact work
Ground Control	$3,000 to $6,000	$258	$3,258 to $6,258
CoStar research	Offered campaign commitment Q	$7,424.67	Q + $7,424.67
LoopNet manual listing research	$0 browsing	$7,424.67	$7,424.67
Crexi export-capable research workflow	Quoted plan and allowances S	$7,424.67	S + $7,424.67
Reonomy research and exports	Current seats and export package R	$7,424.67	R + $7,424.67
CompStak enterprise research	Quoted access P	$7,424.67	P + $7,424.67
Cotality dataset	Quoted delivery D	$7,424.67	D + $7,424.67
Regrid Pro	One researcher, one month at $10; included spreadsheet fields	$7,424.67	$7,434.67

This table holds candidate count and screening time constant to isolate the buying decision. Replace both with your sample measurements for each source. A listing route also has to produce enough candidates; free browsing alone does not establish that it will.

Use the full commitment when this campaign is the reason for buying it. Already have the subscription? Use its incremental charge alongside an allocation of research labor, so the purchase review compares the cost of the next campaign rather than charging one route for new access while ignoring that expense on the other.

At a $15 per-building planning point, Ground Control costs $4,500 plus $258 review labor, or $4,758. Regrid’s access and qualification total is $7,434.67. Ground Control saves $2,676.67 under these assumptions, before comparing contact charges.

There is a clear decision threshold. At that $4,500 list budget, Regrid’s $10 access fee leaves $4,490 for screening. Divide by $43, multiply by 60 to get minutes, then divide by 1,250 candidates: approximately 5.01 minutes per candidate. Faster screening favors the records route on this cost test. Slower screening favors the delivered matches.

The commercial property data cost guide covers other purchase sizes. Record the contact quote for each option beside these totals so the final comparison includes the same work.

How many service accounts pay back the research spend?

Three signed HVAC accounts give the 300-building Ground Control campaign a 3.93:1 five-year LTV:CAC before separately priced contact research, using the account economics below.

Deduct the service costs first. Use $8,100 annual agreement revenue and a 35% gross margin after direct costs, including service payroll and travel as well as the materials and other costs the owner assigns to delivering the agreement. Annual gross profit is $8,100 x 35% = $2,835.

Hold annual revenue and margin constant, assume 85% annual renewal over five years, and leave future cash undiscounted. Expected five-year gross profit is $2,835 x (1 + 0.85 + 0.85² + 0.85³ + 0.85⁴) = $10,513.97 to the nearest cent, or $10,514 per account. Later years count only the accounts expected to renew.

For the campaign, use the $4,500 list budget, $258 review cost and 76 selling hours at $43, or $3,268. Allocate 36 hours to outreach, 28 to meetings and travel, and 12 to proposals, all at the same loaded hourly cost. Assume existing sales tools and no additional advertising spend. The campaign subtotal is $8,026. Let X equal the separately quoted contact-research charges. Total acquisition spending is $8,026 + X.

The base funnel starts with 300 buildings contacted and reaches 60 conversations. That is a 20% conversation rate. Plan for 20 meetings from those conversations (one-third), 12 proposals from meetings (three-fifths), and three signed accounts from proposals (25%). Overall conversion is 1%.

Customer acquisition cost is total campaign spending divided by accounts won. LTV:CAC is expected account gross profit divided by CAC. These calculations make the research budget answerable to signed work.

Outcome from 300 buildings	Accounts won	CAC before X	Five-year LTV:CAC before X	Simple active-account payback
Low	1	$8,026	1.31:1	34.0 months
Base	3	$2,675.33	3.93:1	11.3 months
High	6	$1,337.67	7.86:1	5.7 months

Payback divides CAC by $236.25 in monthly gross profit, which is $2,835 / 12, and assumes the account remains active through that period. Add the contact quote. Base CAC then becomes ($8,026 + X) / 3, giving the owner a spending figure that includes the research ordered with the list.

Lead-list ROI uses account gross profit minus acquisition spending, divided by acquisition spending. At three wins before X, that is ($31,541.91 - $8,026) / $8,026, approximately 293%. At the top of Ground Control’s building-price range, the subtotal rises to $9,526 and the base LTV:CAC falls to 3.31:1 before X.

For the roofing version of this model, assume two $286,500 re-roofs at a 30% gross margin after job costs. They produce 2 x $286,500 x 30% = $171,900 in gross profit. With the same campaign subtotal, ROI before X is ($171,900 - $8,026) / $8,026, approximately 20.4 times acquisition spending. Two wins from 300 targets is a 0.67% account conversion. Put the roofing team’s own selling hours into the model before adopting that budget.

My decision rule would be to require a 3:1 expected LTV:CAC after contact costs and a payback period the cash account can carry. At three wins, the 3:1 hurdle leaves $2,487.97 for contact research: $31,541.91 / 3 - $8,026. If one signed account leaves payback at nearly three years, shrink the next order or improve the offer before expanding.

Use the contractor LTV:CAC guide for the framework and the lead-list ROI calculator for your own costs. The three-rep team’s original $11,700 annual research allowance should face the same account-profit test.

Finding the property manager and the person who approves work

Ground Control’s decision-maker add-on starts the contact task, while the first conversation should confirm who controls service purchasing at that specific building.

Keep the property address attached to every contact record. A person associated with an ownership company is a starting point for a role check. Ask about the address and the service scope before sending a proposal.

I would use four fields to prevent a rep from mistaking contact research for a buying conversation:

Field	Question to ask	What the rep records
Building responsibility	Do you handle HVAC service for this address?	Confirmed role or named referral
Approval route	Who approves a maintenance agreement of this scope?	Approver and required review
Access	Who arranges an equipment survey?	Contact and agreed visit process
Timing	When should we submit for your next service review?	Date and next action

Ground Control can add owner information and research the decision maker, returning contact details where found. Keep unknown buying roles open in the CRM until the conversation settles them. That lets a sales manager distinguish a missing contact from an account waiting for budget review.

For the HVAC offer, ask: “Who handles rooftop-unit maintenance at this address, and when do you next review the service agreement?” Offer the responsible person a defined survey. Ask which equipment schedule they want priced, then confirm the inventory on the visit before preparing the agreement.

For a roof campaign, ask for the person responsible for roof repairs and replacement planning. Agree on a survey scope and access before dispatching a crew. The selected material and age band help prioritize outreach; the site review establishes the work to price.

Our property-manager outreach guide gives the next conversation and vendor-packet process. Keep portfolio expansion tied to permission: after earning a review for one building, ask which other addresses the same buyer wants considered.

When another tool is the better buy

CoStar or another specialist source is the better buy when the recurring job requires transaction evidence, ownership investigation or parcel research rather than a delivered trade prospect list.

• A brokerage that needs commercial market research and transaction comparisons should evaluate CoStar, Crexi and CompStak against its market coverage requirements.
• A property researcher tracing connected ownership across a continuing pipeline should test Reonomy’s portfolios, contacts and current export package.
• A team building its own parcel-based data workflow should compare Regrid with a specified Cotality dataset, including the staff needed to maintain it.
• An owner looking for the next shop or warehouse can start with free marketplace browsing on LoopNet or Crexi.

For the service department buying 300 fitting buildings, I would choose Ground Control and price the buying-contact work with the order.

How to switch your prospecting process in 30 days

Start with 50 buildings, measure the work required to reach qualified conversations, and expand toward 300 only when the account economics support the next purchase.

1. Days 1 and 2: define the account. Write down your territory, accepted building types and minimum service scope. For the HVAC campaign, use retail buildings with 5+ visible rooftop units. Have the service manager approve the territory before buying data.
2. Day 3: price the current workflow. Time a sample of record reviews through acceptance or rejection. Record the candidate count and total minutes. Put the full offered subscription commitment on the same sheet, then calculate cost per fitting building.
3. Day 4: order the first Ground Control group. Select 50 fitting buildings at $10 to $20 a building, with the file delivered within 48 hours after payment. Add owner information or decision-maker research where needed. Review the exact price before paying.
4. Days 6 and 7: assign the file. Load the CSV or Excel file into your sales process, preserving the match reason. Assign each address to one rep. Report wrong matches within 30 days for credit and avoid duplicate outreach to the same account.
5. Days 8 to 14: work the contact roles. Confirm who handles the service and who approves the agreement. Separate a referred contact from a qualified meeting. Record the requested next date when the account is not reviewing vendors yet.
6. Days 15 to 21: make a bounded offer. Offer a defined equipment survey or service review that your estimator can price. Track selling hours through proposal delivery, including meetings that do not advance. Record proposed gross profit alongside the quoted revenue.
7. Days 22 to 30: decide the next order. Calculate cost per qualified meeting and update expected CAC. Review signed agreements and dated next steps. Expand toward 300 buildings in the routes that can carry the service work; keep the next group small if the first one needs more follow-up.

At the 30-day review, record signed work separately from open opportunities. An accepted survey with a scheduled budget meeting stays in the pipeline until the buyer signs.

If the first conversations reveal the wrong minimum scope, change the selection criteria before expanding. The sales manager should be able to explain why the next building order is different in one sentence.

Build your next service territory with Ground Control

The fastest way to replace research-heavy trade prospecting is Ground Control by PorchRocket: order buildings by business type, size and the visible features your crew services. Commercial records cost $10 to $20 per building, with delivery within 48 hours after payment. Choose roof age band and material for roofing, 2+ or 5+ visible rooftop units for HVAC, or paved parking areas for paving. Each row explains its match. Ground Control sends only properties it is 90%+ sure fit, and credits wrong matches reported within 30 days. Add owner or decision-maker research to start with the relevant buying contact.

For this campaign, the order gives your team:

• A territory selected around where your service trucks can work.
• Buildings filtered by the type, size and features your crew wants to sell against.
• A match reason attached to each property, so the rep has a specific basis for outreach.
• Owner information and decision-maker research as add-ons; no charge for a contact we do not find.
• CSV and Excel delivery, with sales-tool import layouts and help mapping CRM fields.
• A visible order price and a 30-day credit-back route for wrong matches.

Start with Ground Control’s commercial building search, select the first territory and give the file to a rep with time to work it.