Locata
Comparison · 2026

Best site selection software in 2026.

Nine tools, honestly compared. We use most of them in adjacent workflows. There’s no single “best” — there’s a best-for-your-decision. Below: what each tool is genuinely good at, what it costs, and where it falls short.

Methodology

Sorted alphabetically. Each entry covers best-for, pricing (indicative where not public), standout strength, and an honest limitation.

Disclosure

Locata is one of the tools listed. We’ve written our own entry the same way as the others — same template, including the limitation field.

Updated

May 2026. We refresh this page as pricing changes or tools ship material updates.

  1. 01

    Buxton

    US-based retail and restaurant site-selection consultancy with a software layer.

    Buxton combines consulting with proprietary site-selection software for retail and restaurant chains. Deep US customer data and predictive modelling; long-standing relationships with US QSR and retail brands.

    Best for
    US retail and restaurant chains wanting a full-service consulting + software combination.
    Pricing
    Consulting + software bundles. Enterprise pricing; not publicly listed.
    Standout
    Decades of US retail data and consulting experience.
    Limitation
    US-focused. Less applicable outside North America for European retailers or for infrastructure decisions.
  2. 02

    CARTO

    Cloud-native geospatial analytics platform for developers and analysts.

    CARTO is a general-purpose location intelligence and geospatial analytics platform that runs on cloud data warehouses (BigQuery, Snowflake, Redshift, Databricks). Strong for teams that already have geospatial data and want to build analyses, dashboards, and visualisations on top of it.

    Best for
    Data and analyst teams building custom geospatial analytics on top of existing warehouse data.
    Pricing
    Freemium with paid tiers; enterprise pricing varies by data volume and seats. Public pricing pages list builder plans from a few hundred USD/month upward.
    Standout
    Native integration with cloud data warehouses; powerful visualisation and analytical workbenches.
    Limitation
    Platform, not a vertical product. You bring the data, the criteria, and the analysts. Doesn't ship AI scoring or per-vertical methodology out of the box.
  3. 03

    Esri ArcGIS

    The industry-standard GIS suite — enterprise-deep, generalist.

    Esri ArcGIS is the long-time industry standard for enterprise GIS, used across utilities, government, defence, telecoms, and retail. Extremely capable, with extensions for almost every spatial workflow. Most large utilities and municipalities in Europe already run on it in some form.

    Best for
    Enterprise GIS teams running mature, regulated geospatial workflows at scale.
    Pricing
    Enterprise. Per-seat licensing plus extensions; budgets typically run into six figures annually for mid-size deployments.
    Standout
    Breadth and depth — almost no spatial task ArcGIS can't handle with the right extension.
    Limitation
    Complexity and cost. Not an AI scoring product — internal teams build site selection workflows on top of it manually, which is slow to iterate on across thousands of candidates.
  4. 04

    GrowthFactor

    AI-driven site selection focused on UK and European retail expansion.

    GrowthFactor uses machine learning on retail location data to predict store performance and recommend new sites, primarily in the UK and adjacent European markets. Aimed at retail chains and food-and-beverage brands.

    Best for
    UK retail and F&B expansion teams.
    Pricing
    Enterprise; not publicly listed.
    Standout
    AI-driven predictions specifically tuned to UK retail patterns and competitor density.
    Limitation
    Narrower vertical and geographic scope; not built for infrastructure verticals.
  5. 05

    LocataThat’s us

    European multi-model AI site selection for infrastructure and retail rollouts.

    Locata scores thousands of candidate locations against custom criteria using three frontier AI models in parallel (Claude, GPT, Gemini) on top of European public data (Kadaster, BAG, BGT, BRO, NDW, PDOK). Output is a ranked shortlist with per-location reasoning fit for ACM dossiers, council consultations, and real-estate committee review.

    Best for
    European infrastructure rollouts (utilities, EV charging, deposit return, mobility hubs) and European retail/QSR expansion.
    Pricing
    Pilots from €15,000 (fixed-scope). Subscriptions from €2,500/month. Enterprise scoped per program.
    Standout
    Multi-model ensemble scoring with disagreement-as-signal — and per-location reasoning that cites the data behind each score.
    Limitation
    Newer to market than incumbents — fewer public case studies (Statiegeld Nederland documented; others anonymised).
    Read the methodologyLocata vs Placer.ai →
  6. 06

    Mapbox

    Maps and location infrastructure for developers; not a complete site-selection product.

    Mapbox provides maps, location services, navigation, and search APIs. Excellent for building location-aware product features. Some teams compose site-selection workflows on top of Mapbox tools and isochrone APIs.

    Best for
    Engineering teams building custom location features into their own product.
    Pricing
    Pay-as-you-go and enterprise tiers; free tier covers low-volume usage.
    Standout
    Developer ergonomics, custom map styling, isochrone and matrix APIs.
    Limitation
    Infrastructure, not a vertical product. No scoring, no methodology, no per-location reasoning — you build everything on top.
  7. 07

    Placer.ai

    US-focused foot-traffic intelligence platform powered by mobile location data.

    Placer.ai aggregates mobile-location panel data to give retailers and real-estate teams insight into visit patterns, dwell time, trade areas, and competitor benchmarks. Strongest dataset and tooling for US retail. Best-in-class for understanding where visitors come from and what else they visit.

    Best for
    US retail expansion, US trade-area analysis, US shopping-centre benchmarking.
    Pricing
    Enterprise. Typical annual licences range from low-mid five figures to six figures depending on seats and modules. Not publicly listed.
    Standout
    Depth and freshness of US mobile-panel data; very strong analyst UX.
    Limitation
    European coverage is thin and data quality drops outside the US. Built around foot-traffic; less relevant for infrastructure (substations, EV charging, deposit return) where catchment volume isn't the deciding factor.
  8. 08

    Smappen

    Lightweight catchment-analysis and isochrone tool for small businesses and analysts.

    Smappen offers fast, accessible catchment analysis — drive-time isochrones, population/income overlays, simple competitor mapping. Strong UX for non-technical users in retail and franchise expansion.

    Best for
    Franchise and SMB retail teams needing quick catchment maps without a GIS analyst.
    Pricing
    Public SaaS pricing from ~€50/month for individuals up to mid four figures annually for teams.
    Standout
    Accessibility — non-technical users get value in minutes.
    Limitation
    Catchment maps are the product. No multi-criteria scoring across thousands of candidates, no AI reasoning, no audit trail for regulated decisions.
  9. 09

    Tango Analytics

    Predictive site selection and real-estate lifecycle software for retail chains.

    Tango Analytics offers predictive site selection alongside lease and store-lifecycle management. Used by retail chains for end-to-end real-estate workflows from site discovery to disposal.

    Best for
    Retail chains wanting integrated site selection + real-estate operations in one platform.
    Pricing
    Enterprise SaaS; pricing not publicly listed.
    Standout
    Tight integration between site selection and the rest of the real-estate lifecycle.
    Limitation
    Heavier deployment than a focused screening tool. Retail-centric; not built for infrastructure rollouts.

Choosing

How to pick the right one.

Start with the geography of the decision. US-heavy → Placer.ai, Buxton, Tango. European-heavy → Locata, GrowthFactor (UK retail), CARTO (data layer), or your internal ArcGIS setup. Multi-continent → likely two tools.

Then look at the data foundation. If your decision turns on US mobile-panel foot traffic, Placer is in a class of its own. If it turns on European public data — Kadaster, BAG, CBS — Placer can’t answer the question and you need a tool with that foundation built in.

Then look at vertical fit. Infrastructure (utilities, EV, deposit return, mobility) needs regulatory defensibility and per-location reasoning. Retail needs catchment and competitive context. The tools that try to do both generically tend to do neither well; the tools that pick a lane tend to perform better at it.

Finally, look at integration. If you already run on ArcGIS, the right tool is probably one that exports cleanly into ArcGIS. If you run on cloud data warehouses, CARTO sits naturally there. If you don’t have GIS infrastructure yet, vertical products with built-in methodology (Locata, Buxton, Tango) reduce setup overhead significantly.

FAQ

Common questions about choosing site-selection software.

  • What’s the best site selection software in 2026?

    There isn’t one best — there’s a best-for-your-use-case. For US retail and shopping-centre work, Placer.ai. For European infrastructure rollouts and EU retail with regulatory defensibility, Locata. For enterprise GIS workflows, Esri ArcGIS. For developer-driven custom analyses on warehouse data, CARTO. The tools below are sorted alphabetically with what each is genuinely strong at.

  • How is this list selected?

    We picked tools that are visibly in market in 2026, have documented use in either Europe or North America, and serve a clearly distinct buyer. Smaller regional or niche tools (xMap, Spatic, Locatium) exist but we’re not including them where we don’t have first-hand or well-documented evidence of how they perform. Yes, Locata is on the list — and we wrote our own entry the same way we wrote everyone else’s: best for / pricing / standout / limitation.

  • Is there a free site selection tool?

    Smappen has a freemium tier suitable for catchment analysis on individual locations. Mapbox has a free tier for low-volume mapping. CARTO has a free builder tier. None of those scales to multi-criteria scoring across thousands of candidates — that’s where commercial tools (or in-house GIS workflows) take over.

  • Do I need AI for site selection?

    Not necessarily. For under ~50 candidates with a small criteria set, an experienced GIS analyst and a spreadsheet often work fine. AI scoring becomes valuable when (a) the candidate set is in the thousands, (b) the criteria are multi-dimensional, (c) the decision has to be defended with reasoning per location, or (d) you need consistency across candidates that hand-scoring won’t produce.

  • Can these tools replace an in-house GIS team?

    No — they complement it. The pattern that works in practice: GIS team owns the underlying data architecture and the questions; a tool like Locata, Placer.ai, or CARTO provides the analysis layer or scoring layer on top. The tools below are categorised as either platforms (you assemble), products (you use directly for a vertical), or analytics layers (you query existing data).

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