Grip alternatives for trade show and expo organizers
Where Grip's AI matchmaking platform fits, where it doesn't, and how Map D compares for organizers whose revenue comes from booth and sponsorship sales.
The strongest Grip alternatives for trade show organizers who sell booth space are Map D, for shows whose revenue comes from booth and sponsorship inventory sold off a live floor plan with published pricing; MapYourShow, for large exhibition floor plans; and Whova, for attendee-engagement-first conferences. Grip itself is an AI-powered matchmaking and networking platform — strong on meetings, onsite and lead retrieval — but its own site does not describe booth inventory sales or a self-serve booth checkout, and it does not publish pricing anywhere.
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 Grip is good at
Grip has built a real reputation on matchmaking quality and structured meeting programs, and it earned that position. If any of the following describe your program, it is a reasonable shortlist entry and this page is not trying to talk you out of it.
- AI-powered matchmaking across multiple formats — one-to-one, hosted buyer, speed networking, roundtables and investor meetings — is the core of the product and it shows.
- A genuinely interactive floor plan with wayfinding, including 'blue-dot' navigation and offline availability, built for multi-floor and outdoor venues.
- 365 Community: a feature built for year-round engagement between events, not just a tool that switches on for show week.
- Onsite tooling — badge printing, entrance scanning, access control, smart badges and location tracking — is native to the platform rather than bolted on.
Why organizers look elsewhere
The gaps that send trade show organizers looking for an alternative.
- Pricing is entirely quote-based. Every relevant page on grip.events, including the event registration product page, directs visitors to request a demo or contact sales rather than listing a rate, so there is no way to budget before a sales conversation.
- Booth space itself is not something Grip's own site describes selling. Its feature pages cover sponsor/exhibitor management, lead retrieval and setting a booth as a meeting location on the interactive floor plan, but not booth inventory sales or a self-serve checkout — that is a different job from what the platform is built to do.
- The product surface is broad — engagement, registration, onsite hardware, platform tooling — which suits a large commercial organizer but can mean configuring and paying for more than a small organizer team needs for a single show.
How Map D compares
Map D’s column states what Map D does. Where a Grip equivalent is not publicly documented, the row says so rather than guessing.
- Map D offers
- 7 of 7
- Grip publicly documents
- 5 of 7
The second bar counts what Grip 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 Grip covers it somewhere we did not find, that is a gap in our checking rather than in their product.
| Criterion | Map D | Grip |
|---|---|---|
| Published pricing | Included | Documented |
| 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 | Documented |
| 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 | Grip |
|---|---|---|
| Published pricing | Yes — $1,500, $2,500 and $2,750 per event, listed on the pricing page. | Grip's site does not publish pricing; every product page, including the event registration product page, directs visitors to request a demo or contact sales (checked September 2026). |
| Pricing unit | Per event. 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. | Grip's floor plan is built for wayfinding and meeting logistics ('blue-dot' navigation, booths settable as default meeting locations); its own site does not describe booth inventory sales or checkout running through the plan (checked September 2026). |
| Self-serve booth and sponsorship checkout | Exhibitors select and pay for space directly from the plan. | Grip's feature pages cover sponsorship visibility and exhibitor management but do not describe a self-serve mechanism for exhibitors to purchase booth space itself (checked September 2026). |
| Exhibitor self-service portal | Profiles, staff badges, documents, add-ons, invoices and renewals. | Grip lists 'Sponsor / Exhibitor Management' among its Manage features, without published detail equivalent to staff badges, documents or renewals specifically (checked September 2026). |
| Registration, badging and lead retrieval | Available as quoted add-ons that connect to the same event record. | Grip documents Event Registration, badge printing/entrance scanning, and Lead Retrieval as native platform features (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.
MapYourShow
Large exhibition floor plans and public exhibitor directories
Long-established in the exhibition space with a strong public-facing directory product.
Whova
Attendee engagement and the conference mobile app
Strong attendee-side product; less oriented toward selling floor inventory.
Swapcard
AI matchmaking plus a broader engagement and webinar suite
Similar category to Grip — an engagement layer, partly quote-priced, not a booth-sales system.
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 required to build a first budget.
- Booth and sponsorship sales run natively off a live floor plan with self-serve checkout, which is not a function Grip's own site describes offering.
- 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 — profiles, staff badges, documents, add-ons, invoices and renewals — plus registration, badging and lead retrieval all run on the same platform as the floor plan.
When Grip is the better choice
- Meeting-format depth is the priority — hosted buyer programs, structured one-to-one and speed networking, investor meetings. Grip's matchmaking is built specifically around those formats in a way a floor-plan-first tool doesn't attempt.
- The program continues between events. Grip's 365 Community feature is built for ongoing engagement, not just single-show operations, which matters for organizers running a year-round community rather than a single annual event.
- Onsite access control and smart badges, beyond standard lead retrieval, are a real requirement — Grip's onsite suite (entrance scanning, access control, location tracking) covers that natively.
- The organizer already has a separate system selling booth space and just needs a stronger matchmaking and networking layer on top for attendees and exhibitors.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Grip cost?
Grip does not publish pricing anywhere on grip.events. Every product page and pricing-adjacent page directs visitors to request a demo or contact sales, so cost depends on a scoped conversation. Map D publishes its rates: $1,500, $2,500 or $2,750 per event.
Does Grip sell booth space?
Not based on what Grip's own site describes. Its feature pages cover sponsor/exhibitor management, lead retrieval, and setting a booth as a meeting location on the interactive floor plan, but there is no mention of booth inventory sales or a self-serve checkout for exhibitors to purchase space. That is a different function from Map D's live floor plan and checkout.
Is Grip a good alternative to Map D for a trade show?
It depends on what's driving the decision. If the show's revenue comes from booth and sponsorship sales, Map D runs that natively off a live floor plan with published pricing. If the priority is AI-powered matchmaking and structured meetings — hosted buyer programs, investor meetings, speed networking — Grip is a stronger fit for that specific job, and it is commonly paired with a separate floor-plan/booth-sales system.
Can Map D and Grip be used together?
Nothing prevents an organizer from running booth sales and the floor plan in Map D while using Grip for matchmaking. Map D includes floor plan, booth sales and exhibitor self-service on one platform, with registration, badging and lead retrieval as quoted add-ons on the same record, which is worth weighing against the cost and complexity of running two systems.
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Related event solutions
Sources
- Grip homepage (product overview, stats) · checked 2026-09-22
- Grip event registration software product page · checked 2026-09-22
- Grip sponsorships feature category · checked 2026-09-22
- Grip platform features overview · checked 2026-09-22
- Map D pricing · checked 2026-09-22
