If you’re looking for a streamlined system to enable your real estate investment firm’s management efforts, two of the platforms you may be considering are Juniper Square and Syndication Pro. In this article, we’ll give a thorough overview of these two platforms, discuss their benefits and limitations, and share insight into which is the right platform for your use case.
Juniper Square overview
Juniper Square is one of the biggest real estate investment management platforms on the market today. It offers a diverse toolset for real estate professionals at real estate investment firms.
SyndicationPro overview
SyndicationPro is another real estate investment management platform, specifically focused on the needs of real estate syndication companies. Part of the SponsorCloud software suite, it is offered alongside other specialized tools for commercial real estate investment firms.
Juniper Square vs SyndicationPro: Pros and cons
| Juniper Square | SyndicationPro | ||
| Pros | Cons | Pros | Cons |
| Longstanding, major brand | Lower quality of reviews | Superior reviews | Integrations require Zapier to use |
| All-in-one solution | Integrations cost extra | Part of an investment management-focused software suite | Reviews cite missing desired features |
| Users report steep learning curve | |||
Both platforms come with their pluses and minuses. Juniper Square is more of an all-in-one solution, while SyndicationPro, with its suite of related products under the SponsorCloud umbrella, makes it an extendable option. Additionally, Juniper Square is older, founded in 2014, compared to SyndicationPro’s 2018 founding year. Alongside that discrepancy in tenure, Juniper Square is the much more well-known and widely-adopted platform. As we discuss below, this can be a plus for long-term stability but, in some cases, represents an obstacle to radical innovation.
Juniper Square vs SyndicationPro: Key differences
In this section, we’ll discuss a variety of specific points of distinction between these two platforms.
Top features
Both platforms offer similar core feature sets but differ in some crucial areas. Both deliver portals for investors to interact with documents and investments, a CRM, tools for analytics, and payment functionality to one degree or another. SyndicationPro is itself part of the larger suite of SponsorCloud software, which also provides tech solutions for fund managers, document management, and investor networking. By itself, SyndicationPro emphasizes the breadth of investor management tools, with less of an emphasis on deep offerings in any particular category.
Best for
Both tools are applicable to a variety of real estate types. SyndicationPro seems to have a stronger user representation among multifamily firms than the more general Juniper Square.
Integrations
Both platforms provide integrations and tools for sharing data across applications, with a caveat. Juniper Square offers a select variety of major tech integrations, such as Gmail. It also provides accounting integrations and API access, but these features cost extra. SyndicationPro offers integrations with numerous specialized and general software tools from the Google suite to HubSpot, but these integrations rely on Zapier and are not entirely native.
Ease of setup and use
Both companies claim that their platforms are easy to use. In fact, neither stands out for a noticeably superior ease of use, either across their own materials or according to reviews. However, it is worth noting that Juniper Square lacks phone support.
Platforms supported
Both platforms are accessible via web app; neither offers a unique mobile application.
Market segments
Both platforms are a good fit for a range of real estate investment firm sizes. SyndicationPro is optimal for small to medium real estate businesses looking for a plug and play tool. Juniper Square, as the more all-in-one tool, is a fit for small through larger real estate firms.
Ratings
Both Juniper Square and SyndicationPro have positive reviews, though SyndicationPro has far fewer reviews in total-only two on G2 and 15 on Capterra versus Juniper Square’s 86 and 61, respectively.
| Review site | Juniper Square | SyndicationPro |
| Capterra | 4.9 | 15 |
| G2 | 4.8 | 5 |
Reviews
Juniper Square has amassed numerous reviews, which generally conclude that the software is powerful and versatile but sometimes hard to learn and use. Meanwhile, SyndicationPro has very few. They tend to point to the software’s utility but mention some challenges with support, the overall user experience, and desired features not yet present in the application.
Recognition
Juniper Square recently won Private Equity Wire US’s Best Investor Relations Technology award. SyndicationPro hasn’t attracted any noteworthy industry buzz.
Alternatives
Alongside Juniper Square and Syndication Pro, several other real estate syndication platforms are also worth considering. In separate articles, we also compared Appfolio Investment Manager and InvestNext, both of which provide a similar feature set to Juniper Square and SyndicationPro.
How does Agora compare?
Investors looking for a best-in-class solution should also consider our own platform, Agora. We built Agora from the ground up to serve investment teams that are looking to scale their portfolios, and we put an emphasis on offering all the tools needed to run an investment pipeline, like an investor portal, CRM, and payment functionality, as well as a variety of powerful features such as financial automation and powerful investor reporting tools. Our platform is loved by its users (4.8 on G2 with over 120 reviews), and it’s worth cross-shopping if you’re interested in Juniper Square of Syndication Pro.
Juniper Square vs SyndicationPro: Which platform is right for you?
The choice of which platform is more suitable for you comes down to a few key decision areas. Are you looking for an all-in-one solution broken down into different tiers of service or a core product that can be enhanced through the addition of related software tools? The former points to Juniper Square, while for the latter, SyndicationPro gets the nod.
As another point of distinction, ask whether you’re looking for an established player in the investment management technology world or a well-reviewed but much less-known upstart. Both of these have their ups and downs; going with the big dog can mean more long-term stability but potentially less innovation, while smaller tools can be fresh and unique but sometimes lack the polish and staying power of their larger competitors.
Conclusion
In this article, we discussed two of the most prominent investment management platforms out there, explored their points of differentiation, and provided insight into which platform fits in which situations. We also discussed some of the unique ways our own tool, Agora, stands out from the investment management crowd.
There is no simple answer to the question of Juniper Square vs. SyndicationPro. Making the decision to go with a particular investment management platform comes down to many factors, including the toolset provided, the quality of support, and the size of your real estate investments pipeline. We hope this guide has given you a good understanding of several popular investor relations tools out there.
