If you're a commercial real estate broker shopping for a retail mapping solution, two names come up frequently: CRE Retail Maps and SitesUSA. Both help you create professional maps for offering memorandums, lease proposals, and tenant presentations. But they take fundamentally different approaches to getting there.
This comparison breaks down where each tool excels, where each falls short, and which one fits different types of CRE workflows.
How They Work: Focused Tool vs. Full GIS Platform
The most important difference between these two platforms is scope.
CRE Retail Maps is a purpose-built retail mapping tool. You open the editor, search for your property address, and start building your map immediately. Place brand logos, draw leader lines, adjust styling, and export - all in one session, typically in under 15 minutes. It does one thing and does it fast.
SitesUSA offers REGIS Online, a comprehensive GIS and demographics platform. It includes mapping capabilities alongside demographic data, traffic counts, drive-time analysis, trade area tools, and market optimization. It's a powerful platform, but it's designed for deep market research and site selection - not specifically for producing quick, branded retail maps for listing packages.
For brokers who need a polished retail map right now - for a pitch meeting tomorrow morning, or a listing that just came in - a focused tool gets you there faster. For brokers who need GIS data layers, demographics, and trade area analysis, SitesUSA's broader platform covers more ground.
Feature Comparison
Logo Libraries and Brand Placement
CRE Retail Maps includes a searchable library of over 1,000 brand logos. You type "Starbucks" or "Chase" and the logo appears, ready to place on your map. The auto-find nearby businesses feature scans the area around your property by category - restaurants, banks, fitness centers - and populates logos automatically.
SitesUSA's REGIS Online includes a database of 900+ retailers across 35 categories with over 1 million locations nationwide. The platform can display nearby merchants on a map, but the focus is on data analysis rather than producing visually branded presentation maps with customizable logo placement.
Map Styling
CRE Retail Maps offers eight map styles out of the box: default, light, dark, retro, silver, night, satellite, and terrain. You can also customize highway highlighting (color, weight, opacity), toggle label visibility for streets, highways, areas, businesses, transit, and water features, and choose from 12 preset color swatches or use a custom color picker.
SitesUSA's REGIS Online uses GIS-style map rendering with demographic overlays, heat maps, and radius rings. The maps are data-rich but geared toward analysis rather than visual presentation styling. If your priority is a clean, branded map for an OM, you may find the output more analytical than polished.
Organization and Layout
CRE Retail Maps provides drag-to-group containers that let you cluster related logos together with grid layout and custom titles -- for example, grouping all "Restaurants" or "National Retailers" into labeled containers. Leader lines connect logos to their exact map locations, keeping the map clean even when logos are clustered in a legend area.
SitesUSA's platform is built around data layers and geographic analysis, not visual layout for marketing materials. It doesn't offer drag-and-drop logo positioning, leader lines, or the kind of presentation-focused layout tools that make retail maps look polished in an OM or flyer.
Data and Demographics
This is where SitesUSA has a genuine edge. Their platform integrates traffic counts, demographic data, trade area analysis, and GIS layers that go well beyond what a retail mapping tool provides. If your OM requires a demographic summary, drive-time analysis, or traffic count overlay, SitesUSA can deliver that as part of their package.
CRE Retail Maps focuses specifically on the visual retail map -- the branded, logo-driven map that shows the surrounding tenant ecosystem. It does that one thing extremely well, but it doesn't include demographic data or traffic analysis.
Export Options
CRE Retail Maps exports to professional PDF with branded templates and high-resolution PNG up to 4K. You can download your finished map immediately after building it.
SitesUSA exports maps and reports as PDFs and images, and also offers template-based marketing flyers with custom branding. Both platforms let you produce export-ready files, but CRE Retail Maps is specifically optimized for the polished, branded retail maps that go into OMs and listing presentations.
Pricing
This is where the two platforms diverge sharply.
CRE Retail Maps offers a free tier for getting started. Pro plans run $39/month or $379/year (annual plan). Unlimited maps, unlimited exports. Pricing is published and transparent.
SitesUSA uses custom pricing for REGIS Online subscriptions - you need to contact their sales team for a quote. Given the breadth of GIS data, demographics, traffic counts, and market analysis tools included, expect pricing to be significantly higher than a single-purpose mapping tool. There is no free tier.
For brokers whose primary need is producing branded retail maps for listings and presentations, CRE Retail Maps delivers at a price point that makes sense for individual brokers and small teams. SitesUSA's pricing reflects the value of its broader data platform - worth it if you need demographics and market analysis, but potentially overkill if you just need great-looking maps.
Learning Curve and Time to First Map
| Factor | CRE Retail Maps | SitesUSA (REGIS) |
|---|---|---|
| Setup | Sign up and start immediately | Contact sales for pricing and access |
| Learning curve | Minimal - most users build first map in 10 minutes | Steeper - full GIS platform with many features to learn |
| First retail map | 10-15 minutes | Longer due to platform complexity |
| Revisions | Instant drag-and-drop | Varies by workflow |
| Primary strength | Speed and visual polish | Data depth and analysis |
When to Choose CRE Retail Maps
- You produce retail maps regularly (weekly or monthly)
- You need maps quickly, often same-day
- You want full control over logo placement, styling, and layout
- You prefer predictable monthly pricing over per-project costs
- You value the ability to make instant revisions without waiting
- Your primary need is a branded retail tenant map, not demographic analysis
When to Choose SitesUSA
- You need demographic data, traffic counts, or trade area analysis alongside your maps
- Your workflow requires drive-time rings, radius analysis, or market optimization
- Your budget accommodates enterprise GIS platform pricing
- You need data layers and analytical tools that go beyond visual mapping
- You're evaluating sites for development or expansion, not just marketing existing listings
Can You Use Both?
Yes, and many brokers do. A common workflow is to use CRE Retail Maps for the branded retail maps that go into every listing package and tenant presentation, and SitesUSA's REGIS Online for the deals where deep demographic analysis, traffic data, and trade area research justify the investment.
The tools solve different problems. CRE Retail Maps replaces the hours you'd spend in PowerPoint building retail maps from scratch. SitesUSA replaces the research analyst who would compile demographic and traffic data. Knowing which tool fits which job is the key to producing great deliverables without overpaying for features you don't need.
Take a look. Sign up free at app.creretailmaps.com - no sales call, no credit card required. Build a retail map in 10 minutes and decide if it fits alongside SitesUSA.
Related guides
- SitesUSA alternative - full comparison - The full head-to-head
- Pricing - $39/mo vs SitesUSA's enterprise quote
- Mapping software for CRE brokers - Built for the broker workflow
CRE Retail Maps Editorial Team
VerifiedCRE Software & Industry Analysis
The CRE Retail Maps editorial team produces in-depth analysis of commercial real estate technology, retail market trends, and broker workflows. Our content is reviewed by retail brokers and industry practitioners with decades of combined experience covering grocery-anchored, power center, and lifestyle retail across major US markets.