CoStar pricing and what a CoStar seat costs in 2026

By Jan Suski. I go deep on every review, checking every number against its source and digging up details other coverage misses, a habit from six years of SEO and link building for tech companies. Bylines at Surfer, Brand24, and Senuto. How the scoring works.

Published 6 October 2026

CoStar sells every seat through a quoted License Agreement, so the most reliable CoStar cost figures sit in public contract files. Contracts from Chicago, Irvine and San Diego dated August 2024 to December 2025 put a CoStar Suite seat at $502 to $557 a month.

The price climbs on its own schedule. Chicago paid 10% more per seat in its fifth contract year than in its fourth, and CoStar Group's 2025 annual report credits part of its growth to "inflation-based price increases." Every contract renews itself for a full year unless written notice lands 60 days before the term ends.

This report covers quotes, public contracts, the July 2026 clauses, the antitrust suits and cheaper tools, for brokers, appraisers, lenders and teams building a real estate market intelligence budget. Our CoStar review covers the platform itself.

How much does CoStar cost?

A CoStar Suite seat costs $502 to $557 a month in the three most recent public contracts, or $6,030 to $6,683 per user per year.

Vendr, a software purchasing service, puts the median CoStar contract at $15,360 a year, with a low of $5,412 and a high of $22,092. Its buyer guide says the benchmark draws on 3 completed deals, a sample small enough to keep an eye on. Both numbers describe whole contracts, which bundle users, sites and markets into one fee.

CoStar quotes each deal after a demo, and the 10-K says customers "generally pay contract fees on a monthly basis" against a fixed subscription fee. The problem for a first-time buyer is that every input to that fee sits inside the sales process.

CoStar's place in commercial property draws comparisons to the Bloomberg Terminal. A Bloomberg seat renewed at $31,980 from 1 January 2025, according to NeuGroup, about five times the $6,030 per license Chicago paid CoStar in 2024-25. Our Bloomberg Terminal pricing and market intelligence platform pricing reports compare seat costs across data software.

What sets a CoStar quote

CoStar's filing lists the inputs. Contract rates are "generally based on the number of sites, number of users, organization size, the client's business focus, the client's geographic location, the number of properties reported on or analyzed, the number and types of services to which a client subscribes," per the 10-K. For a CoStar Suite buyer, four of those set the number.

• Users. Every broker, analyst, appraiser, underwriter or asset manager who benefits from the data at a licensed site must be an Authorized User "regardless of how much they actually use the CoStar Product," under section 2 of the terms. The clause names job titles, so a quiet analyst still counts.
• Sites. Each office is a separate site with its own user list. San Diego's contract names two, one with 13 users and one with 3.
• Geography and product mix. Waterford's 2018 form priced COMPS and Property Professional at $160 a month each for one market, while San Diego and Irvine bought "CoStar Suite All Data".
• Organization type. Size and business focus feed the rate, so a brokerage, a lender and a city economic development organization get separate quotes.

The users clause carries the most risk for growing teams, because it turns headcount into a compliance question. Section 9 bans shared passcodes, bars sharing access "with any third-party AI services," and lets CoStar "increase License Fees to account for any additional users detected." Understanding that rule before the first quote, and acting to ensure every user is listed, keeps passcode access clean.

What public agencies pay for CoStar

City governments publish their CoStar contracts, which makes them the one group of buyers whose exact price anyone can check. This review of six contract records covers four public bodies.

Fees are the contract amounts in each city's published record: Waterford Township's agenda file and the Chicago, Irvine and San Diego contracts linked above. Per-user rates divide the monthly fee by the licensed users.

Chicago's file tells the story in numbers. Its planning department paid $139,284 for three years from July 2021 with 10 licenses, about $387 a seat each month. The two-year extension added three seats and moved the rate to $502, then to $553 in year five, a 43% climb in four years.

The same memo states that "DPD can find no similar alternative to CoStar" and that the cost "was based on a negotiated quote from CoStar." A buyer who writes the first sentence into a public filing puts CoStar in the driver's seat at the next renewal.

Seat count moves the per-user price. Irvine paid $1,113.84 a month for two users, or $557 each, while San Diego pays $8,119 for 16 users, about $507 each. A Phoenix broker described the same spread on BiggerPockets in August 2024.

"Solo brokers at a boutique may pay up to $650 per license, while those with bulk pricing at a major commercial firm can get it for under $400 per license."

Gabriel Graumann, real estate broker, in a BiggerPockets thread, August 2024

CoStar products and how each is priced

CoStar Group bills each brand on its own terms. Vendr tracks four CoStar products (CoStar, CoStar Benchmark, CoStar Real Estate Manager and CoStar for Lenders), and Homes.com's average annual subscription was $3,400 before a fee increase for new members from 2 May 2026, per Inman.

CoStar Suite

The core platform's features cover 8.5 million-plus properties, 7 million-plus lease activities and 5 million-plus sale comps, according to CoStar, which claims 300,000-plus subscribers. Its inventory spans office, industrial, retail, multifamily, hospitality, student housing and land, the core of most property market intelligence work.

The price pays for verification. CoStar's researchers collect information "through phone calls, e-mails, and additional research methods including field inspections," per the 10-K, after a training program designed to keep methods consistent. Appraisers and lenders license that precision, gathered on the ground, for underwriting workflows, investment decisions and market insights.

STR Benchmarking, a separate CoStar product, offers hotel occupancy, ADR and RevPAR comparisons for hotel market intelligence teams.

LoopNet

LoopNet search is free, and LoopNet offers paid ad packages. Its ad package comparison lists Silver at a 3-month initial term and Gold, Platinum and Diamond at 6 months, priced by quote. LoopNet revenue reached $312 million in 2025, up 11%, on more paid listings and "an increase in the average price per listing."

CoStar Real Estate Manager

CoStar's lease accounting software solution, which the 10-K groups with Visual Lease as "real estate and lease management technology solutions," prices on lease volume. A budgeting guide on its Real Estate Manager blog by Matt Waters, CPA, in August 2017, priced cloud software for compliance with FASB's ASC 842 and IFRS 16 based on lease counts.

• 500 real estate leases and 500 equipment leases cost $5,000 a month for the real estate leases plus $1,500 for the equipment leases.
• 5,000 of each cost $30,000 and $5,000 a month.

The same post priced the abstraction process around the software. A lease takes 2 to 3 hours to abstract, so a 1,000-lease organization "may need to allocate 2,500 hours" for review, and 43% of surveyed organizations expected compliance costs under $250,000.

CoStar Real Estate Manager carries an 88% user satisfaction rating on SelectHub, which defines it as the share of 249 reviewers who'd recommend it.

SelectHub's review summary says it automates lease accounting processes and cites ease of use, internal controls, ASC 842 and IFRS 16 compliance and data accuracy, while flagging slow support.

It's designed for corporate real estate departments that handle lease accounting, portfolio analysis and transaction workflows, and Vendr's listing highlights audit-control features that protect data integrity.

Contract terms that raise the bill

The CoStar License Agreement Terms and Conditions, effective 6 July 2026, cover the database and "the related tools and software," and set every price change after day one. The devil's in the details, and these clauses carry the cost.

• Automatic renewal. The agreement renews "for successive periods of one (1) year each" unless either side gives written notice at least 60 days before the term ends.
• Month-end expiry. A term ends on the last day of the calendar month, so a contract starting on the 15th runs to that month's end a year later.
• Annual CPI increase. On each anniversary CoStar "may increase the License Fees by a percentage equal to the percentage increase in the CPI."
• Renewal increases. In a renewal term CoStar may raise fees or add charges, and a licensee can walk away within 60 days only when the increase beats CPI.
• Billing. Fees are billed in advance, due net 30, with late charges "at a rate equal to the maximum rate permitted under applicable law."
• Disputes. A billing error raised more than 180 days after it appears is waived.
• Exit. Within 10 days of termination the licensee must delete every element of the licensed data, and CoStar may audit compliance.
• Breach. A breach that ends the agreement makes "all License Fees and all other fees" due at once, plus collection costs.

Section 3 caps exports into spreadsheets at amounts CoStar considers "insubstantial," and section 4 bars feeding the data to outside AI tools or training any machine learning model on it. Teams whose comp workflows run through spreadsheets or AI features need to review both clauses.

The terms tightened over time. CoStar's December 2018 terms already carried the 60-day notice and the CPI increase. The 2026 version adds the all-beneficiaries seat rule, the shared-passcode fee increase, the 180-day dispute deadline, a class action waiver and the AI restrictions, five clauses in all.

One change narrowed an existing exit. The 2018 terms let a licensee terminate over any renewal-term increase it didn't accept, and the 2026 terms limit that exit to increases above CPI. The 60-day window is set in stone in section 5 unless a buyer negotiates it out.

Renewal increases CoStar customers report

CoStar's filing names the increase outright. CoStar product revenue rose $103 million, or 9%, in 2025 "due to an increase in subscribers and inflation-based price increases," with $35 million of that from Visual Lease. At $1,259 million, CoStar took the lion's share of the $1.8 billion commercial real estate segment.

Customers renew anyway, at an 89% rate in 2025 and 2024 on subscriptions of a year or longer, against 90% in 2023. The 10-K tells the same story, since renewals can carry a higher fee under the CPI clause.

"[T]wo years ago I start paying $495 a month in a one year subscription net 30 plan. At this moment in 2024 it has increased to $519.75 net 30 with automatic renewal yearly subscription."

Alexis Porro Fortun, investor's agent, in the same BiggerPockets thread, August 2024

Jason M. wrote on Trustpilot in November 2024 that "[t]he timing of their invoice's artfully-crafted arrival fell just beyond the closing of my cancellation window," before CoStar renewed him "for Year 2 at a new annual rate of $6,500+." An invoice that lands after the deadline is a red flag worth answering in writing.

"Make sure to put in a cancellation request as soon as you start a contract or they lock you in for an additional year with rate hikes."

Dustin Ferguson, CoStar subscriber, on Trustpilot, June 2026

How to negotiate a CoStar contract

San Diego shows the strongest move on record. Its contract states that "Section 5(b) of the Terms and Conditions is hereby deleted in its entirety" and that the agreement "shall not renew upon expiration of its initial term." To achieve that result, ask for the same wording in the first draft, before the renewal process starts.

1. Review the July 2026 terms, then strike or rewrite the renewal clause, or ask for a shorter notice window.
2. Put day minus 60 in the calendar on signing day. To ensure the notice counts, send it in writing, by email to cancel@costar.com under section 16.
3. Count every person who touches the data before quoting seats, so the seat count on the contract matches the all-beneficiaries rule.
4. Price market scope line by line, and iron out the details on seats and markets to ensure the quote names both.
5. Cap the anniversary increase in section 8. Chicago's negotiated quote still rose 10% in one year.
6. Time the signature. Vendr's guide lists end-of-quarter signing and multi-year commitments among its levers on CoStar deals.

Coverage area moves the number fastest, and buyers report that subscribing to a wider geographic area raises the subscription cost. A certified general appraiser in Virginia wrote on AppraisersForum in February 2022 that "We just bumped to national coverage for $2200 for 4 of us in Richmond, VA."

If a renewal quote arrives above CPI, section 8's 60-day termination right is the bargaining chip, and a buyer has to be ready to bite the bullet and use it. The cost savings from one deleted clause show up every year after.

Lawsuits and data disputes behind CoStar's pricing power

Two customer class actions filed in 2026 tie CoStar's prices to antitrust claims. Our CoStar lawsuit report tracks every case, and four bear on price.

• Grand & Co., Eastern District of Virginia, filed 15 April 2026. Plaintiffs' firm DiCello Levitt says CoStar holds "roughly 80%" of the national market for commercial real estate listing and information services and used it to "raise prices."
• FitFactariDC, Northern District of Illinois, filed 12 June 2026 against CoStar and five brokerages, CBRE and JLL among them. It alleges a hub-and-spoke conspiracy across 49 metro areas and rents rising 0.3% to 0.8% per square foot with each 1-point gain in CoStar's share, per Facilities Dive.
• CREXi. CoStar sued the marketplace in September 2020 for copying listings and photos, and the Ninth Circuit revived CREXi's monopolization counterclaims, per Bisnow. CoStar asked the Supreme Court to review that ruling.
• CoStar as plaintiff. It won a $500 million judgment against Xceligent in 2019 and is suing Zillow over roughly 47,000 photos, a claim CoStar puts above $1 billion.

CoStar's defense leans on its contract. Section 4 bars licensees from using the data "to create, directly or indirectly, any database or product," and blocks competitors from licensing it at all. The 2026 plaintiffs argue those clauses removed the level playing field rival data technology vendors needed, a legal risk buyers should track before signing a multi-year deal.

CoStar against cheaper alternatives

Three CoStar alternatives post software prices on their own sites. The table sets them beside CoStar's public-contract rate and the Bloomberg Terminal.

Entry prices are list prices read from crexi.com, reonomy.com and crefinder.ai on 4 October 2026. The CoStar row comes from public contracts and the Bloomberg row from NeuGroup's renewal report, since neither vendor publishes a rate card.

A CoStar seat at $6,030 to $6,683 a year runs about twice a Crexi Intelligence seat at $3,228. For a solo investor, that gap can cost an arm and a leg.

"Last time we checked I believe it was $10-$15k/yr and if you wanted more territory pricing was higher. Crexi is an alternative for 1/10th the price but of course not as much info"

Chris Seveney, investor and moderator, in the same BiggerPockets thread, February 2023

Each platform does a narrower job. Crexi Intelligence features comps, lease rates and ownership history.

Crexi Intelligence pricing for individuals starts at $269 a month billed yearly, or $299 month to month, on a tier aimed at "part-time investors and individuals doing hands-on research."

Reonomy offers ownership records on 53 million-plus properties under a seat-based model, with full web app access monthly, partners with Cotality and ICE, and pitches its API, which pushes data into existing workflows, as "a single source of truth for your team."

Our Crexi Intelligence review, Reonomy review and Cotality review cover the data behind each. In practice, monthly plan availability shapes buying decisions, since it decides which software a buyer can test first.

CRE Finder's own guide lists its Professional plan at $499 a month and frames CoStar as a research product and its own tool as a sourcing platform designed for off-market opportunities. It argues the bottleneck for value-add operators is finding deals, and that operators are splitting CoStar's jobs across cheaper tools. Its homepage prices skip-traced owner contacts at $0.25 each.

For institutional transaction data, MSCI Real Assets runs on Real Capital Analytics, which MSCI bought in September 2021 per our MSCI acquisition report. Data teams joining several feeds use Cherre, and our ranking of real estate data providers scores 10 platforms head to head.

What to budget for CoStar

Start from the contract records, then add the CPI increase each time the contract turns over. Investors mapping their data requirements can start with our real estate investor strategy guide.

• One or two users in one market. Irvine's contract works out to $6,683 per seat a year, so plan on $6,000 to $7,000 per seat in year one.
• A 10 to 15 person team. Chicago's 13 licenses ran $78,384 in 2024-25 and $86,222.40 in 2025-26.
• A multi-site public office. San Diego pays $8,119 a month, or $97,428 a year, for 16 users at two sites.
• Lease accounting software. CoStar's 2017 example put 500 real estate leases and 500 equipment leases at $6,500 a month, or $78,000 a year, before abstraction time.

Every figure above is a starting price. A CPI step each anniversary is par for the course under section 8, and Chicago's file shows a 10% step in a single year. The 60-day notice date sets the time left to negotiate year two, so renewal risk belongs in the budget, with a review of the renewal date at each quarterly close.

Frequently asked questions

What's the difference between LoopNet and CoStar?

CoStar Group owns both. LoopNet is the free-to-search listing marketplace, with ad packages on 3- or 6-month initial terms. CoStar is the subscription research platform of verified comps, tenants and analytics, licensed by the seat.

Is there a free version of CoStar?

Every CoStar seat sells under a paid License Agreement, and the lowest annual contract in Vendr's data is $5,412. LoopNet's listing search is the free way to see CoStar Group property data today.

What exactly does CoStar do?

CoStar collects and verifies commercial real estate information, 8.5 million-plus properties and 5 million-plus sale comps, and licenses it as subscription software to brokers, appraisers, lenders' underwriters and investment professionals. Its researchers verify transactions by phone, email and field inspection, and the 10-K lists property inventory and STR hotel benchmarking among its features.

What products are included in the CoStar Group?

The 2025 10-K names CoStar, LoopNet, Apartments.com, Homes.com, Matterport, STR, Ten-X, BizBuySell, LandsofAmerica, OnTheMarket, Domain, Visual Lease, CoStar Real Estate Manager, Thomas Daily, ForRent and Business Immo, a complete list of its brands.

Why is the CoStar Group falling?

Investors have punished CoStar's Homes.com spending. Third Point published a letter on 27 January 2026 and D. E. Shaw followed on 4 February, accusing management of "destroying as much as $11 billion in shareholder value," per Real Estate News. The stock traded just over $51 that day, a 52-week low.

Net income fell to $7 million in 2025 from $139 million on $3.2 billion of revenue, a net margin near 0.2%. CoStar plans to cut Homes.com net investment by $300 million in 2026, per Virginia Business.

Is CoStar a Chinese company?

CoStar Group is a Delaware corporation headquartered at 1201 Wilson Blvd in Arlington, Virginia, where it moved from Washington, D.C., on 21 January 2025, per its 10-K. A China clause in its terms names STR Benchmarking Solutions (Beijing) as the contracting entity for licensees there.

Bottom line

CoStar pricing comes down to seats, sites and markets, and the public record puts a CoStar Suite seat at $502 to $557 a month in 2024 to 2026 contracts.

The contract decides the second-year bill. The 60-day notice window, the all-beneficiaries seat rule and the above-CPI exit clause each move money, and San Diego's deleted renewal clause shows CoStar has signed away auto-renewal for at least one buyer.

Buyers who need verified comps keep paying CoStar's rate. Buyers who need ownership records or off-market leads get them from Crexi, Reonomy or CRE Finder for $3,228 to $5,988 a year, while the 2026 antitrust suits test how CoStar sets the rest.