Locus vs Mapline

Locus brings demographic, competition, access, demand and commercial-premises information onto a map to help assess business locations. It presents population and foot-traffic patterns, nearby competition and an AI assessment of local opportunity. Reports can lay out local context, trade-offs and evidence behind a location decision. Locus Pulse follows reviews, competitor movement, reputation and market rank as indicators of neighbourhood change. Ask Locus can navigate the map, adjust catchments, inspect evidence, find commercial premises and help organize options into comparisons, shortlists or projects. The product describes workflows for commercial real estate advisers, franchise and multi-site retail teams, business owners and marketing teams. Demographic coverage is deepest in the United Kingdom and United States; other markets may use global population and age estimates through WorldPop and supported regional sources. Free map access is available, alongside a $15, paid once location report and subscriptions from $49 a month. Locus says its recommendations support decisions, not valuations or planning opinions, and do not guarantee business performance.

Mapline turns spreadsheet data into maps and supports location analysis, territory planning, and routing. Users can paste Excel data or upload Excel and CSV files; datasets can contain 10 to 100,000 locations. Pins can be styled by spreadsheet columns with colors, shapes, sizes, icons, labels, and images. Mapping tools include filters, segments, heat maps, territory reports, distance analysis, coverage views, and trend analysis. Users can draw or import ZIP-code and county boundaries and balance territory statistics. Routing tools optimize routes and stop assignments, generate driving directions, and calculate distances across thousands of locations. Mapline offers Geo Mapping, Geo BI, Geo Routing, and Geo Scheduling, along with connectors for services including Google Sheets, HubSpot, Salesforce, and Microsoft SQL Server. Its REST API uses API-key authentication and returns JSON. The web-based service has a free Mapping Starter plan at free, limited to 500 locations total, 250 per dataset, one map, two datasets, and five routes of 10 locations each. Geo BI, Geo Routing, and Geo Scheduling have a 7-day trial; other plan pricing is on request.