UpKeep vs MaintainX for Property Managers

UpKeep and MaintainX are two of the few general-purpose maintenance systems a commercial facilities team can price without a sales call, along with Fiix, and that is usually why they end up compared. The buyer is the one in our tracked prompt: the engineering team at a small commercial property management company, asking UpKeep vs MaintainX. Think a handful of office or flex buildings, two or three engineers, a property manager who answers to the owner, and nobody who wants a six-month implementation. Neither tool was built for commercial real estate. Both are manufacturing-led CMMS products with a facilities or property management page, so the test is how well each handles tenants and the lease side. This page sets the two side by side from the vendor database and the research behind the CRE facilities management guide, then covers where each fits, the published prices, and what to test in each demo.

Where each fits

UpKeep describes itself as a mobile-first CMMS used by more than 4,000 companies, covering work orders, automated preventive maintenance, asset management, an external request portal and an offline mobile app. The customers it names, Unilever, PepsiCo, Chevron and McDonald’s, are plants and occupiers rather than landlords, and the research lists its industries as manufacturing, facilities, food and beverage, transportation and healthcare. Its database segment is commercial facilities. Two features matter to a building team. The offline app is the answer to the basement mechanical room with no signal. The external request portal is how a tenant would submit a request without a login. The UpKeep profile has the dated sources.

MaintainX describes itself as a CMMS and enterprise asset management platform used by more than 14,000 companies, covering multi-site work orders, preventive maintenance, assets, inspections, parts inventory and reporting. It has a property management page, which says tenants can submit and track work requests and that preventive maintenance can repeat across any of your properties, and which names Cushman & Wakefield, Marriott and Hilton. Its segments in the database are commercial facilities and institutional multifamily, the only one of the two with a residential tag. The MaintainX profile carries its record.

The short version is that MaintainX has said more, in public, about property management, and UpKeep has said more about the technician’s phone. For a small commercial team that matters in a specific way. If tenants will submit requests directly, MaintainX’s property page describes that workflow and UpKeep’s request portal is the feature to inspect. If your engineers work in parking garages and below-grade plant rooms, UpKeep’s offline claim is the one to test first. Neither product lists tenant billing, and neither names a property management system integration.

That last point is the gap for a commercial buyer. UpKeep’s record says API and custom integrations with none named. MaintainX’s pricing page names Zapier, SAP, Oracle NetSuite, Ignition, Kepware, MQTT and an open REST API, which are business and industrial systems, not lease accounting. If your PMS is MRI or Yardi, the MRI integrations page and the Yardi integrations page list what does connect to each, and neither vendor here appears in that record.

Pricing models

Both vendors publish per-user monthly pricing, which in this category means per technician seat.

UpKeep lists Essential at $24 per user per month and Premium at $55, with Professional and Enterprise priced on request. MaintainX lists a free Basic tier, Essential at $20 per user per month on an annual plan or $25 month to month, Premium at $65 annual or $75 monthly, and Enterprise on request.

At four seats, say two engineers, a chief engineer and the property manager, Essential runs $96 a month on UpKeep and $80 a month on MaintainX’s annual plan, or $100 month to month. Premium runs $220 a month on UpKeep and $260 on MaintainX annual. The difference at this size is small. The bigger number is how many people need a seat. Per-seat pricing favors a building with two engineers and punishes a team that wants every contractor and tenant contact logging in, so ask both whether requesters and vendors need paid seats.

Our record does not say which features sit in which tier for either vendor. Ask both which tier includes the tenant request portal, preventive maintenance scheduling, inspections, the API, and reporting you can hand to an owner.

What to ask each in a demo

The research for this category comes from vendor pages, with the strongest buyer language from a CRE vendor’s guide to tenant service requests. These questions follow its pain points.

1. Chargebacks. Take a closed work order with two hours of engineer time and $40 in parts, and ask each vendor to produce the tenant invoice at the lease rate. Neither lists tenant billing, so expect an export. Ask what the file looks like and who keys it into your accounting system.
2. Lease system. Ask which direction data moves with MRI or Yardi, if at all, and how properties, suites and tenant contacts get into the CMMS. With UpKeep, ask what the API and custom integration route costs. With MaintainX, ask whether the REST API or Zapier is the realistic path.
3. Tenant intake. Ask UpKeep to show the external request portal from the tenant’s side, and MaintainX to show the tenant request flow from its property page. Ask what the tenant sees while a request is open.
4. Offline. Put a phone in airplane mode and close a work order with a photo. UpKeep names offline use as a feature; ask MaintainX the same.
5. Contractors. Ask whether the product tracks certificates of insurance and their expiry dates, and whether contractors can update a job without a paid seat.
6. Fit. Ask each to name a commercial landlord customer with a tenant request workflow live.

What the Index shows

The live comparison above shows how often each vendor turned up in the 2026-09 edition for this category, on the same prompts and runs. The live table suggests ChatGPT treats UpKeep and MaintainX as a pair from the general-CMMS group, often in the same answer and rarely ahead of the CRE-first platforms, so the choice between them comes down to the demo questions above. The rows for UpKeep in the Index and MaintainX in the Index list the prompts and sources.

Which fits you

UpKeep fits a small engineering team whose day happens on the phone, often without signal, that wants a simple request portal and a short price list. MaintainX fits a team that wants a free tier to start on, inspections and parts in the same product, a published property management workflow for tenant requests, or a portfolio that mixes commercial and multifamily. If chargebacks and lease-system sync are central, neither may fit, and the CRE-native platforms deserve a look before you sign.

That look starts at the Building Engines alternatives page, which covers Visitt, Facilio and the other landlord-first tools, and the full facilities vendor list puts every vendor in the category side by side. If part of your portfolio is apartments, the maintenance and vendor network guide covers the residential side.

If you make maintenance software and want to know what a facilities lead hears when asking an assistant which system to buy, AI visibility for proptech companies explains what we measure and what the fix costs.