Software comparison
Commercial real estate underwriting: a buyer's reference
Why this page mentions Reddit. People add "reddit" to a search like this because they want an answer from someone with nothing to sell them. We do have something to sell, and we say so plainly below. We also did not read Reddit while writing this and we quote no post, user or thread. What follows is the straight answer to the question you were actually asking, with our conflict of interest stated up front and every vendor claim linked to the page we read it on.
Disclosure. This page is published by Altyst, and Altyst is one of the tools discussed below. We sell a paid subscription and there is no free trial, so our commercial interest in this page is a sale. Read our description of our own product accordingly. Below we name cases where a competitor is the better answer, including two where rivals do something we cannot do at all. Altyst is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Reddit, Altus Group, ARGUS, or any other company named here. No affiliate links.
On sources. We did not read Reddit while writing this. Nothing here quotes, paraphrases or characterises a Reddit user, thread, comment or vote count, and nowhere on this page do we tell you what people on forums think. Every vendor statement is linked to the page we read it on, listed at the end.
Four arguments come up for leaving ARGUS Enterprise at a small shop: the price is quoted rather than published, so you cannot compare it without a sales call; one licence is carried by two or three analysts rather than a whole bench; a full lease-by-lease model is slow relative to the number of deals you rule out; and deciding whether to bid does not require a valuation file. The first of those follows from what Altus Group publishes. The rest are reasoning rather than measurement, they are ours and not gathered from anyone else, and none of them settles your case.
If a lender, appraiser or LP requires an ARGUS file, stay on ARGUS. If an existing library of ARGUS work has to come with you, two alternatives here advertise taking it in: U-Rite, whose ARGUS compatibility page offers to "Unlock any Argus file instantly into U-Rite," and Rockport VAL, whose product page lists "Import ARGUS® exports." Altyst does neither. Otherwise Rockport VAL, U-Rite, AcquiOS, Altyst or a maintained Excel model are worth pricing against your renewal quote.
Altus Group's ARGUS Enterprise page describes the product as "now part of ARGUS Intelligence Platform," and states: "Every tiered, asset-based subscription to ARGUS Intelligence Platform includes ARGUS Enterprise, alongside ARGUS Asset Manager, ARGUS Portfolio Manager, and ARGUS Assist." The page does not say whether ARGUS Enterprise can still be bought on its own, so that is a question for your account manager rather than something we can answer for you.
Two things follow from that wording, not from anything we measured. The subscription is described as asset-based, which means it tracks what you own rather than how many models you build. That is a different axis from the one a small, active underwriter cares about, because screening volume and asset count are not the same number. And it is described as a bundle, so a team that wanted a cash flow model is contracting for four named products.
On price, the same page says: "Pricing is flexible, tiered and scales with your business." It then directs you to contact them. No figure is published anywhere on it. Any dollar amount you have seen attributed to ARGUS is therefore unverified until it is in your own written quote, and you need that quote before you can know whether anything below is cheaper.
A large fund spreads one licence across a whole analyst bench; a two-partner shop spreads it across two. The licence costs what it costs either way, so the cost carried per deal underwritten is higher at low volume. Whether that is enough to justify moving is arithmetic you can only do with the renewal quote in hand.
A full lease-by-lease model is real work. It is the right work for the deal you are actually buying, and the wrong work for the ones you are still ruling out.
In a small shop, the person who knows the software tends to be the only one who knows it, and the models become hard to maintain when that person leaves. This cuts both ways. If your team already has the skill, it is an asset you would be writing off by moving.
To decide whether to bid, and roughly where, you need a defensible NOI, a debt sizing that respects your DSCR and debt yield constraints, a levered return and a sensitivity table. That is a smaller job than a lease-by-lease valuation file.
| Option | What it is | Best for | Published price | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ARGUS Intelligence (includes ARGUS Enterprise) |
Altus Group's page describes ARGUS Enterprise as a "commercial property valuation software solution that covers cash flow forecasting, and asset management," now sold inside a tiered platform. | Anyone whose lenders, appraisers or LPs expect an ARGUS file. | None. The page says pricing "scales with your business" and directs you to contact them. | Pricing described as asset-based, which is not the axis a small, high-screening underwriter is measured on. |
| Rockport VAL | Cloud-based CRE valuation and cash flow modelling. Their page claims scenario comparison, Excel and system integration, an audit trail, a web interface and the ability to "Import ARGUS® exports." | Firms that still need institutional valuation work and want ARGUS output to come across. | None. Contact Sales. | No published price, so budget a sales cycle. Confirm in a demo exactly which ARGUS output the import accepts. |
| U-Rite | An underwriting tool that works inside Excel. Their site calls U-Rite Pro "An Argus alternative, 100% in Excel," and runs a separate ARGUS compatibility page. | Teams whose workpapers live in Excel, and anyone carrying ARGUS files across. | Yes. A free Lite plan with capped usage, plus paid Essentials and Pro tiers priced per month, billed annually. | ARGUS Conversion is listed as a Pro-plan feature, not a Lite one. Whatever the tool, an Excel-resident model carries Excel's version-control problems. |
| AcquiOS | Their site: "AcquiOS automates CRE underwriting, assumption validation, and deal analysis. OM to model in minutes." It extracts assumptions "with citation-level sourcing" and populates your existing Excel and PowerPoint templates. | Shops whose own template is the deliverable and who want to keep it. | None. Plans named Growth, Enterprise and Enterprise Cloud; the page says "Per-deal pricing with enterprise contracts available." | It fills your template, so it is only as sound as your template. A flaw in your house model now propagates faster. |
| A maintained Excel model | A downloadable spreadsheet model you own and maintain. Free and paid versions both exist. | The cheapest credible path, and the best way to actually learn the mechanics. | Varies. We publish a free multifamily one at altyst.ai/tools/multifamily-model. | Nobody maintains it but you, and every figure is typed by hand. |
| Altyst (this site, published by us) |
Upload an OM, rent roll, T-12 or lease, or paste a listing link; the figures land in a live editable model on a deterministic engine. | Small shops screening across property types. | $12, $24 and $99 per month. | New, small, no free trial, no ARGUS file import or export, not a system of record. |
| A general-purpose chatbot | A language model reading your PDF and doing arithmetic in prose. | Summarising an OM, drafting a memo, sanity checks against a model you already trust. | Varies by vendor. | Prose arithmetic is not a model. Nothing recomputes when you change an input, and the working is not reproducible. |
One to rule out early. We checked PropLab (proplab.app) because it comes up alongside these tools, and it is residential rather than commercial: after-repair value, rehab cost estimates, maximum allowable offer, and analysis from MLS, Zillow and Redfin links, aimed at fix-and-flip investors, wholesalers and rental investors. It publishes its plans openly and offers a free tier, and it looks capable at what it does. It is simply not commercial underwriting, and it is not an ARGUS alternative.
Stay on ARGUS Enterprise if any of these is true. For these readers, the alternatives are a false economy.
One thing worth raising at renewal: keeping a single ARGUS seat for deals that close and reporting that needs it, while screening on something cheaper, is a middle option, and it is not always obvious that you have to choose all or nothing.
Whatever you shortlist, test it on a closed deal whose answer you already know. Then shift the exit cap rate 25 basis points and confirm that IRR, equity multiple and every waterfall tier move. Static output is a report, not a model.
We publish this page, so the useful part is the list of cases we lose. These are the ones we would concede without argument.
Altyst is browser-based CRE underwriting software. Give it an offering memorandum, rent roll, T-12, lease PDF or a pasted listing link, and it extracts the figures into a live, editable model. Calculations run on a deterministic engine rather than a language model, so the AI does extraction and the arithmetic is reproducible: identical inputs give identical outputs, and every number traces to a visible assumption. It covers tenant-level rent roll, T-12 normalisation, growth, vacancy, lease rollover with TI and leasing commissions, debt sizing, an equity waterfall, DCF, IRR, equity multiple, DSCR, cash-on-cash, exit, scenarios and sensitivity tables, and exports to Excel, PDF and PowerPoint, across ten property types: multifamily, office, retail, industrial, self-storage, hotel, medical office, mixed-use, land and ground-up development.
Our pricing is published: Individual $12 per month for 5 deals, $4 per extra deal; Professional $24 per month for 15 deals, $3 per extra; Team $99 per month for 75 deals across 5 seats, $3 per extra.
The limits matter more than that list:
Honest summary: if you screen many more deals than you close, across more than one property type, and nobody in your chain demands an ARGUS file, a month at $12 is a cheap way to find out whether it fits. If a counterparty needs ARGUS output, or your existing ARGUS models have to come with you, we are the wrong answer and one of the tools above is the right one.
No. Altus Group's ARGUS Enterprise page says only that "Pricing is flexible, tiered and scales with your business," and then directs you to contact them. Because the subscription is described as tiered and asset-based, two firms can reasonably pay different amounts. Any figure you have seen quoted elsewhere is unverified until it is in your own written quote.
Altus Group's page does not say. What it does say is that ARGUS Enterprise is "now part of ARGUS Intelligence Platform," and that "Every tiered, asset-based subscription to ARGUS Intelligence Platform includes ARGUS Enterprise, alongside ARGUS Asset Manager, ARGUS Portfolio Manager, and ARGUS Assist." Whether a standalone ARGUS Enterprise contract is still available is a question for Altus Group, and we would ask it in writing before renewal.
A spreadsheet model you build and maintain yourself costs nothing but time, and it teaches you the mechanics. Among the named tools here, U-Rite publishes a free Lite plan with capped usage, though its ARGUS Conversion feature sits on the Pro plan. Altyst starts at $12 per month with no free tier and no trial. Rockport VAL and AcquiOS publish no prices at all, so a like-for-like comparison needs a quote from each. Altyst publishes this page, so weigh our row accordingly.
Two of the tools here advertise bringing ARGUS work in. U-Rite runs a dedicated ARGUS compatibility page offering to "Unlock any Argus file instantly into U-Rite," and lists ARGUS Conversion as a Pro-plan feature. Rockport VAL's product page lists "Import ARGUS® exports," wording that describes accepting what ARGUS produces rather than opening the native file. Both are their claims, not test results of ours, and both describe bringing ARGUS work in rather than writing it back out. AcquiOS does not address ARGUS file compatibility on the pages we read. Altyst neither opens nor produces ARGUS files. If this matters to you it is a shortlist filter rather than a nice-to-have, so make it the first demo question and watch one of your own files open before you sign anything.
It depends which part is AI. Reading figures out of a PDF is a different job from calculating returns. Extraction is inference and must be checked against the source document. Calculation should be deterministic: identical inputs give identical outputs, and every number traces to an assumption you can see and change. Ask any vendor which of the two their AI does. A chatbot doing arithmetic in prose fails this test, because it cannot recompute when an input changes.
We do not know, and this page does not tell you. We did not read the threads while writing it, so any summary of them here would be invention dressed as research. Nothing on this page quotes a Reddit user, thread, comment or vote count. Go and read the commercial real estate subreddits yourself, and weigh what you find as anecdote: posters rarely state their asset count, their renewal terms, or whether a counterparty requires an ARGUS file, and those three facts decide the answer more than any recommendation does.
All vendor pages read on 16 September 2026. U-Rite's pricing page showed two different figures for its paid tiers when we read it, so we have not printed a number for them; take the current one from their page. Vendors change their sites and their prices. If something above is out of date or wrong, tell us and we will correct it.