3e by EXPOCAD alternatives for trade show and expo organizers
EXPOCAD's CAD-rooted floor plan tools run some of the largest shows in the industry. Here is how its documented feature set and quote-only pricing compare to Map D for organizers who don't need full CAD drafting.
For organizers who sell booth space and sponsorships directly off a live floor plan and want published pricing, Map D is the stronger fit. 3e by EXPOCAD is a serious, CAD-rooted floor plan and exhibitor-management platform used by some of the largest shows in the industry — its site names clients including CES, SEMA and NVIDIA — but pricing is quote-only and the product leans toward CAD-heavy drafting workflows built for general service contractors and large-show operations teams.
Written by Map D, which is one of the alternatives listed below. Claims about other platforms are limited to what those companies publish themselves, and each is sourced at the foot of the page. Last verified September 2026.
Hall A
LiveHall A revenue
$184,600
Trusted by leading associations
What EXPOCAD is good at
EXPOCAD has deep roots in CAD-based floor plan drafting for the trade show industry and serves some of the largest shows in North America. If your event fits that profile, it's worth evaluating.
- Automated and 3D CAD floor plan design plus electrical layout automation — genuinely CAD-first tooling that general service contractors and large-show operations teams recognize.
- An Exhibitor Resource Center that centralizes contracts (with e-signature), sponsorship upselling, invoicing, payment processing and badge generation in one exhibitor-facing hub.
- Real-time analytics covering booth performance, sponsorship ROI and year-over-year comparisons, documented as working across multiple shows from one dashboard.
- A client list that includes some of the largest trade shows in the world — its site names CES, SEMA and NVIDIA among its clients — showing it operates at serious scale.
Why organizers look elsewhere
The gaps that send trade show organizers looking for an alternative.
- EXPOCAD's site does not publish pricing anywhere we could find; every relevant page routes to a 'Schedule a Demo' request, so budgeting requires a sales conversation first.
- The product's CAD/drafting heritage and its dedicated general-service-contractor page suggest a workflow built for complex, large-scale floor plans and dedicated ops staff, which can be more platform than a small or mid-size organizer team needs.
- Attendee-facing directory and engagement features are described in general terms (interactive directories, chat, scheduling) without the specific self-serve booth-checkout language Map D uses, so it's unclear from the public site how much of booth selection is self-serve versus contract-managed.
How Map D compares
Map D’s column states what Map D does. Where a EXPOCAD equivalent is not publicly documented, the row says so rather than guessing.
- Map D offers
- 7 of 7
- EXPOCAD publicly documents
- 3 of 7
The second bar counts what EXPOCAD documents on its own site, which is not the same as what it can do. A criterion we could not verify is shown as unverified, not as missing — if EXPOCAD covers it somewhere we did not find, that is a gap in our checking rather than in their product.
| Criterion | Map D | EXPOCAD |
|---|---|---|
| Published pricing | Included | Unverified |
| Pricing unit | Included | Unverified |
| Interactive floor plan with live booth inventory | Included | Documented |
| Self-serve booth and sponsorship checkout | Included | Documented |
| Exhibitor self-service portal | Included | Documented |
| Registration, badging and lead retrieval | Included | Unverified |
| Hotel booking for attendees | Included | Unverified |
$1,500
$2,500
$2,750
—
Map D’s rates are per event and listed on the pricing page. The dashed column has no height and no figure on purpose: where rates are not published we will not put a number on them, and where they are published we will not restate one that can change without notice.
Criterion by criterion
| Criterion | Map D | EXPOCAD |
|---|---|---|
| Published pricing | Yes — $1,500, $2,500 and $2,750 per event, listed on the pricing page. | EXPOCAD's site does not publish pricing; the pages we checked route to a 'Schedule a Demo' request rather than listing rates (checked September 2026). |
| Pricing unit | Per event, flat regardless of booth count. Adding organizers or exhibitors does not change the plan price. | Not publicly documented |
| Interactive floor plan with live booth inventory | Core to the product — booth availability, pricing and sales run off the same live plan. | EXPOCAD documents real-time floor plan design, editing and sharing plus automated CAD and 3D floor plan design tools (checked September 2026). |
| Self-serve booth and sponsorship checkout | Exhibitors select and pay for space directly from the plan. | EXPOCAD documents online booth and sponsorship sales through an exhibitor portal, including online contracts, e-signature, invoicing and payment processing (checked September 2026). |
| Exhibitor self-service portal | Profiles, staff badges, documents, add-ons, invoices and renewals. | EXPOCAD's Exhibitor Resource Center is documented as a self-service hub for contracts, sponsorships, invoices, payments and badge generation across multiple events (checked September 2026). |
| Registration, badging and lead retrieval | Available as quoted add-ons that connect to the same event record. | EXPOCAD documents exhibitor badge generation; its site describes integrations with separate CRM and registration platforms rather than native attendee registration or lead retrieval (checked September 2026). |
| Hotel booking for attendees | Included — add your hotel or room-block booking URL and attendees reach it from the event map and app. | Not publicly documented |
The alternatives worth shortlisting
Map D
Shows whose revenue comes from booth and sponsorship sales
Floor plan, booth sales, exhibitor management and reporting on one platform, priced per event and published, with registration and badging as quoted add-ons.
ExpoFP
Budget-conscious organizers who mainly need a floor plan
Publishes rates for both DIY and done-for-you floor plan design, scaled by booth count.
A2Z Events (Personify)
Established associations wanting a long-tenured, full-suite platform
25+ years in the trade show/association space, with registration, badging, CEU management and matchmaking built in.
MapYourShow
Large exhibition floor plans and public exhibitor directories
Long-established in the exhibition space with a strong public-facing directory product.
Where Map D is stronger
- Pricing is published and flat: $1,500, $2,500 or $2,750 per event, with multi-year rates available — no demo request required to build a budget, unlike EXPOCAD's quote-only model.
- Booth and sponsorship sales run off a live floor plan with self-serve checkout, aimed at organizers who need selling power without full CAD/3D drafting and electrical layout automation.
- Roughly 800 organizers run about 6,000 events a year on Map D, which has processed more than $250M in booth and sponsorship sales.
- Exhibitor self-service, registration, badging and lead retrieval all live on the same event record, so a mid-size organizer team isn't assembling registration and lead retrieval from separate integrated tools the way EXPOCAD's public pages suggest.
When EXPOCAD is the better choice
- You run a very large show with complex, irregular booth geometries and need true CAD/3D drafting and electrical layout automation — EXPOCAD's tooling is purpose-built for that in a way lighter floor-plan tools are not.
- Your show already works within a general service contractor (GSC) ecosystem where EXPOCAD is the standard — EXPOCAD has a dedicated GSC-facing product page and workflow built around that relationship.
- You need year-over-year, multi-show analytics dashboards out of the box across a large portfolio of events run by a dedicated operations team.
- You're comfortable with a quote-based enterprise sales process and specifically want a vendor with a track record at flagship-scale shows like CES and SEMA.
Frequently asked questions
How much does 3e by EXPOCAD cost?
EXPOCAD does not publish pricing on its site; every relevant page we found leads to a 'Schedule a Demo' request rather than listing rates. Map D publishes flat per-event rates instead: $1,500, $2,500 or $2,750.
Is there a free alternative to EXPOCAD?
Not a meaningful one for a show that needs CAD-level floor plan complexity. EXPOCAD doesn't publish a free tier, and the value it provides — CAD drafting, exhibitor contracts, multi-show analytics — isn't something free tools replicate.
What is the best EXPOCAD alternative for a mid-size organizer?
Map D — for shows that don't need full CAD/3D drafting and electrical layout automation, a live floor plan with self-serve checkout and published pricing is a simpler, cheaper path to the same outcome: booths sold and exhibitors managed.
Can we move an existing event from EXPOCAD to Map D mid-cycle?
Usually yes. The work is importing the floor plan and exhibitor list; onboarding covers both, and timing depends on where the show is in its sales cycle.
Stop reading about it. Build one.
Upload the floor plan you already have and place your booths on it yourself, in Map D’s editor. Free to build, no contract, and nothing to install.
“I am really excited about this. The staff met with me this morning and we all LOVE the platform. People are already filling out their booths.”
Keep exploring
Related event solutions
Sources
- 3e by EXPOCAD homepage · checked 2026-09-22
- EXPOCAD floor plan design & management · checked 2026-09-22
- EXPOCAD attendee engagement · checked 2026-09-22
- EXPOCAD for event organizers · checked 2026-09-22
- Map D pricing · checked 2026-09-22
