The short version
I use both. They solve different problems, and most serious US CRE brokers who prospect actively run both.
- CoStar: the industry-standard database for listings, sale and lease comparables, ownership records, tenancy, and market analytics. Founded 1987. I still pay for CoStar through my brokerage. It is the backbone of almost every US CRE brokerage's desktop research, and that is not going to change.
- SCAYLED: live occupier scanning and verified decision-maker contacts for neighbor-first prospecting. I built it in 2025 after ten years in industrial brokerage because no tool turned a listing address into a call list fast enough.
The question isn't "which one should I buy." It's "what am I trying to do on this listing." The answer usually requires both.
What each tool actually does
CoStar is genuinely the best at
- Looking up a specific property's sale and lease history, comparables, ownership
- Accessing the industry's largest listing database (including LoopNet + CoStar Go)
- Pulling market analytics, absorption trends, vacancy rates, rent growth
- Running desktop due diligence across a market or submarket
- Matching tenancies in known CoStar-covered buildings
- Enterprise reporting and market analysis for institutional owners
I use CoStar every week. When I need to pull DFW absorption numbers for a pitch deck or check lease comps on a warehouse in Chicago, nothing else comes close.
SCAYLED is built for
- Scanning every occupier inside a radius around a listing (650 ft or 1,200 ft)
- Identifying the decision-maker at each operator (VP Operations, Facility Manager, Managing Director, Regional Director, GM)
- Verifying email addresses against live domain records (98% deliverability)
- Flagging same-building matches (the highest-converting lead in industrial)
- Drafting personalized outreach based on the listing context
- Moving from "address" to "twenty verified contacts with drafted emails" in two minutes
I built SCAYLED because after ten years of brokerage I was still spending half a day manually Googling operators around each new listing. That was the gap. Not analytics, not comps. Just the prospecting grind.
Where the overlap is
More overlap than most competitor pairs, but still narrow. CoStar does cover tenancies in its curated database, so for a Class A industrial park in Dallas or a well-covered office tower in Manhattan, CoStar will show you the tenant roster and sometimes contact info. But for the long-tail of small-to-mid-size industrial operators, owner-occupied warehouses, family-owned logistics, and any submarket that isn't core CoStar territory, the tenancy coverage gets thin fast. I saw this constantly working listings in West Auckland and again in DFW.
SCAYLED's edge is the long tail, and the fact that the scan is live, covers any address, and returns contact-ready decision-makers, not just tenant names.
Feature comparison
| Feature | CoStar | SCAYLED |
|---|---|---|
| Listings database (for-lease, for-sale) | ✅ Industry standard | ❌ Not covered |
| Sale & lease comparables | ✅ Industry standard | ❌ Not covered |
| Ownership records | ✅ Comprehensive | ❌ Not covered |
| Market analytics (absorption, vacancy, rent) | ✅ Comprehensive | ❌ Not covered |
| Tenancy data (covered buildings) | ✅ Strong in core markets | ⚠️ Overlap zone |
| Live occupier scan (any address) | ❌ Not the model | ✅ Any US address |
| Decision-maker contact at each operator | ⚠️ Limited, varies by market | ✅ Per-scan, verified |
| Verified email addresses for outreach | ⚠️ Some, inconsistent | ✅ 98% deliverability |
| Same-building match flagging | ❌ Not automated | ✅ Automatic |
| Outreach draft generation | ❌ Not covered | ✅ Per-listing personalized |
| CRM for deal tracking | ⚠️ CoStar CRM add-on | ✅ Built-in |
| Pricing model | Enterprise subscription (typically $500–5,000+/user/mo) | Per-broker ($0 / $79 / $149 USD/mo) |
Pricing breakdown
CoStar
Per-seat enterprise pricing, negotiated per brokerage. CoStar doesn't publish list pricing, but based on broker surveys and public disclosures:
- Individual brokers / boutique firms: ~$500–1,500 USD per user per month (varies by market access and modules)
- Mid-size brokerages: bundled enterprise contracts
- Larger brokerages: enterprise agreements into five or six figures per month
Almost always paid at the brokerage level. I have never met an individual broker who pays for CoStar out of pocket.
SCAYLED
- Free Trial: $0, 50 credits one-time, 1 listing
- Starter: $79 USD / month, 200 credits, up to 5 listings
- Pro: $149 USD / month, 425 credits, up to 10 listings
The practical difference:CoStar is a boardroom decision at the brokerage level. SCAYLED is a corporate card decision at the broker level. A broker can sign up for SCAYLED and be scanning inside five minutes; CoStar usually requires a procurement conversation with the firm's leadership.
When to use which
You've just been briefed on a listing and need to prospect before it goes live
→ SCAYLED. Drop the address, scan the 650 ft radius, call the same-building tenants first. This is the workflow I built the product around.
A client wants a comprehensive market analysis for a submarket
→ CoStar. Absorption, vacancy, rent growth, comparables, the aggregate market picture SCAYLED doesn't do.
A vendor wants a CMA before signing a listing agreement
→ CoStar. Sale and lease comparables are CoStar's core strength.
You're going after an off-market acquisition target
→ Both. CoStar for the ownership record. SCAYLED for the operator currently inside the building.
You're pitching for a new mandate against a competing brokerage
→ Both. Walking in with a pre-built target list is the strongest pitch move in transactional brokerage. The brokers I talk to who use both typically win the mandate over the team that walks in with just a market overview.
You're tracking market movements in DFW industrial over the last year
→ CoStar. Historic sales, leases, rent growth, absorption. CoStar Analytics is built for this.
You're calling on a vacant building to find the owner
→ CoStar for the owner. SCAYLED for the surrounding operators who'd pay to expand next door.
What I tell brokers who ask
I was an industrial and logistics broker for ten years before building SCAYLED. I still pay for CoStar access through my brokerage. SCAYLED was not built to replace CoStar. It was built to do the thing CoStar does not do: turn a listing address into a list of verified decision-makers in two minutes instead of six hours.
Honest constraint: SCAYLED does not replace CoStar for market analytics, comparables, or ownership records. If you do mostly advisory work, CoStar is what you need. If you do mostly transactional work with heavy cold outreach, SCAYLED is what you need. If you're serious about the business, you probably already have CoStar. Add SCAYLED for the prospecting layer it does not cover. Together they cost less than a single closed deal.
Amir, founder of Scayled