Multifamily Access Control for Commercial Facilities

Some multifamily operators also run doors that are not apartments. A mixed-use tower with ground-floor retail, an office building in the same fund, a management company that took on a commercial contract. The access-control platform then has to do two jobs: provision residents from Yardi or RealPage at move-in, and manage employees, tenants, and contractors on a schedule the way a commercial system does. Several vendors in our multifamily access control guide list commercial facilities as a segment. This page covers them and the trade-offs between them.

What this segment needs

The commercial side wants readers at doors, mobile credentials, schedules, and an audit trail. The multifamily side wants credentials that appear when a lease starts in the PMS and disappear when it ends, without a site team touching it. Most commercial platforms do the first well and the second not at all; the research notes list Kisi, for example, with a single Yardi Bluepoint connection and a weak multifamily fit, and Verkada with no PMS integration named, which is still true of its record in our database. Brivo, Avigilon Alta, Verkada, 2N, and Kastle list both institutional multifamily and commercial facilities as segments; ProdataKey and Aiphone list commercial facilities and describe products sold to multifamily and apartment buildings.

The other thing this segment needs is a decision about unit doors. None of the vendors here sells the smart-home hub and per-unit lock stack that SmartRent or PointCentral does, though Verkada and Kastle extend smartphone access to unit doors. A mixed-use operator usually ends up with a commercial-grade platform on the common and commercial doors and a separate unit-lock platform on the apartments, and the question in the demo is whether the two can share a credential.

The table below is rendered from our vendor database, filtered to vendors that list commercial facilities, with a source URL and verification date on every fact.

How the fit differs

Brivo is cloud access control with a Multifamily Edition built for apartment communities and mixed-use. Its confirmed PMS list is Yardi, RealPage, Rent Manager, and Entrata, which is the widest native multifamily coverage of any commercial-first vendor in the category. It lists institutional multifamily and commercial facilities as its segments. For an operator who wants one vendor across the residential lobby, the amenity doors, and the ground-floor tenant spaces, and who runs one of those four PMS platforms, Brivo is the default to price first.

Avigilon Alta is the former Openpath, renamed under Motorola Solutions. It sells cloud readers and mobile credentials and reaches multifamily through partners such as iApartments rather than through a native PMS integration; it publishes no PMS list of its own. It lists commercial facilities first and institutional multifamily second. For an operator whose commercial doors outnumber the apartments, or whose security team already runs Avigilon video, it is the one to weigh, with the understanding that the multifamily provisioning path runs through a partner.

Verkada is a cloud-managed physical security platform. Its multifamily offering puts Bluetooth smartphone access for doors, elevators, and units, video intercoms, cameras, and visitor management in one console. It names no PMS integration in our database. It publishes hardware MSRP, such as $349 for the AD34 door reader and $899 for the AC12 one-door controller, plus a required software license per device, most of whose prices are not listed. It suits an operator whose security team wants cameras and doors in the same system.

Kastle Systems is a managed security provider rather than a platform you run yourself. It installs, operates, monitors, and maintains the system: smartphone access from garage to unit, the KastleVideocom intercom, cloud video, and remote monitoring, with a PMS sync that deactivates access at lease end. Yardi is the integration in our database. Pricing is not published.

2N, part of the Axis group, makes IP video intercoms, access readers, and indoor stations for apartment buildings, with My2N app call answering, PIN and QR-code guest credentials, and mobile keyless access. It names no PMS integration in our database. It publishes its software pricing: My2N is free for most features, residential intercom-to-smartphone calling beyond the included licenses is $44 per apartment per year or $270 per apartment for ten years (MSRP), and commercial projects are $31 per device per year. Hardware prices are not published.

ProdataKey (PDK) is cloud access control for doors, gates, and amenity spaces, offered to multifamily properties alongside other commercial building types. Entrata is the one PMS integration in our database. It sells through distributors and dealers, so the quote comes from an integrator.

Aiphone is an intercom manufacturer. Its IX | IXG Series is an IP video intercom for apartments and multi-tenant buildings, with a tenant app for answering calls and unlocking doors and AiphoneCloud remote management. It names no PMS integration in our database. Pricing is a custom quote, and Aiphone states that no subscription fees are needed to keep its products online.

The Brivo vs Avigilon Alta comparison takes both through the same demo questions side by side. The research notes also record Brivo being compared against Kisi and against Openpath directly, which is the shape of most commercial shortlists.

Questions to ask

Ask which PMS the multifamily provisioning connects to natively, and if the answer is a partner, ask who owns that integration and its support. Ask what data syncs, in which direction, and whether it is real-time or scheduled; an office tenant’s badge schedule and a resident’s lease end date are different events and the platform should handle both.

Ask whether one mobile credential can open a commercial door on a schedule and a residential door by lease. Ask how contractors and vendors get temporary access on both sides. Ask what still works during an outage, since a retail tenant locked out at opening is a different problem from a resident locked out at night.

Ask about the residents who will not use an app. Washington’s ESSB 5937 requires a non-app key on request from January 2027, and New York has already seen a lawsuit on the point; commercial-first platforms tend to assume everyone has a phone. Ask who installs and supports the system, the vendor or an integrator, and whether the same integrator covers both sides of the building.

Brivo, Avigilon Alta, Kastle, ProdataKey, and Aiphone publish no pricing. Verkada publishes hardware MSRP but not most license prices, and 2N publishes its license prices but not hardware. Ask for the per-door reader figure, the per-unit or per-credential software figure, and the minimum, in writing. The vendors list for the category has every verified fact side by side, and the Yardi integrations page shows the full set of vendors with a confirmed Yardi connection.

What the Index shows

The 2026-09 edition holds 25 ChatGPT runs for multifamily access control, one per prompt, captured from the ChatGPT app on 19 September 2026. Brivo was named in 75% of runs, on 18 of the 25 prompts, and Avigilon Alta in 28%, on 7; none of the 25 prompts describes a mixed-use or commercial operator, so the set measures how the two are named when a multifamily buyer asks. Both were named on the portfolio standardization prompt, the keyless entry shortlist, the built-for-multifamily prompt and the Yardi and AppFolio integration prompts; Brivo was named with a recommended framing four times and Avigilon Alta never was. The snapshot above carries the current ranking. Either vendor wanting to know what shapes that result should read our page on AI visibility for proptech companies.

If the apartments are the bigger part of the portfolio, the institutional multifamily page covers the full-stack platforms this page leaves out.