Vertical piezoelectric platform is the key equipment in precision engineering fields, however, the characteristics of carrying load capacity and the smoothness of cross-scale motion in the vertical direction restrict their applications. In this work, an alternate drive method for a vertical piezoelectric platform is proposed to solve these challenges, and the characteristics of cross-scale motion, large carrying load capacity and smooth displacement output are achieved simultaneously. The working principle of the vertical positioning platform and the theoretical analysis for the alternate drive mode are introduced in detail. A series of experiments are performed, and the results show that the motion of the vertical piezoelectric platform has good smoothness in the cross-scale motion and carrying load capacity based on the alternate drive mode. The maximum upward and downward velocities are 4.44 and 7.43 mm/s under the voltage of 600 Vp-p and the frequency of 850 and 925 Hz, respectively. Finally, the point positioning, oblique and sine trajectory tracking experiments are performed, which demonstrate that the vertical piezoelectric platform has the capacity of automated precision positioning and tracking target. Therefore, the alternate drive-based vertical positioning platform has huge potential in precise applications, such as micro/nano machining and complex biological manipulation. Display omitted