AllTrails
Discover the best hiking and biking trails
From $35.99/yr
Category
The best Maps software
Maps & Navigation software and applications
- Tools listed
- 43
All 43 maps tools
Every listing shows its published starting price on the same footing, so a shortlist does not take ten tabs.
What maps software costs
Counted from the published pricing of the 43 listings on this page. A tool counts as free only where it publishes a $0 plan, an open-source licence or a starting price of zero.
- Cheapest paid plan
- $0Foursquare Places API
- Median entry price
- $5.99across 13 priced
- Dearest entry price
- $100Google Maps Platform
- Publish a $0 plan
- 18of 43
Paid maps plans in this set start anywhere from $0 a month for Foursquare Places API to $100 for Google Maps Platform. The median entry price across the 13 tools that publish one is $5.99, half of them start below that figure and half above it.
Entry price is not the ceiling. The dearest published tier anywhere in this category is Google Maps Platform's at $1,200 a month, 12× the highest entry price on the page. Read the top of each ladder as well as the bottom, because that is where you land after two years of growth.
18 of 43 publish a $0 plan, and 10 of those charge nothing at all. 5 tools have no free tier of any kind.
5 of 43 keep at least one tier unpriced and sold by quote, which in practice means the number you end up paying at the top end is not on this page or on theirs.
Foursquare Places API pricingGoogle Maps Platform pricingGoogle Maps Platform plans
How these vendors bill
The billing model each of the 43 maps listings publishes, counted. Two tools at the same headline price are not the same purchase if one of them charges per seat.
- freemium
- 19
- open-source
- 4
- subscription
- 3
- free
- 2
- quote
- 2
- usage-based
- 1
Separately, 5 of 43 publish at least one tier with no price attached. Those are sold by quote, so the top of the ladder is negotiable, and unknowable, until you talk to sales.
What “Maps” covers in practice
The subject tags that recur across these 43 listings, with the number of tools carrying each. A category label is a filing decision; this is the closer read of what is actually filed under it.
- gis2
- government2
- mapping2
- navigation2
- outdoor2
Carried by a single tool: backcountry, coordinates, free gps, location-intelligence, offline navigation, precision navigation, spatial-analysis, topographic. If one of those is the reason you are here, the category page is the wrong lens, go straight to that product.
How to choose between them
Four things the numbers above should change about your shortlist.
Start with the free tiers if there are enough of them
18 of 43 maps tools here publish a $0 plan, which is enough to run a real trial without a purchase order. A free tier is worth more than a free trial when you are evaluating: a trial expires on the vendor's schedule, a free plan expires when you outgrow it. The thing to check before you commit is which of the capabilities below sit above the free line.
Read the spread before you read the features
$0 to $100 is a $100 spread on entry price alone, and a spread that wide is never about polish, it is about who the vendor built for. Tools at the bottom of this ladder are priced for one person or a small team; tools near $100 are priced for a department with a procurement process. Decide which of those you are before you compare capability, or you will shortlist four tools that were never competing for the same buyer.
Check which tier you actually land on
6 of 43 tools here publish three or more tiers, and the median vendor in this category ships 3 of them. The advertised price is the first rung. Price your shortlist at the tier that contains what you need, not at the tier on the pricing page's left edge.
The billing model matters more than the headline number
This category splits across 6 billing models: freemium on 19 listings, open-source on 4, and 4 other arrangements across the rest. A per-user price and a flat subscription at the same headline figure are not the same purchase, the first one grows with headcount and the second does not. Multiply by your real team size before you compare two numbers side by side.
Compare maps tools directly
Every pairing below is a full comparison: the same checklist applied to both, so a gap in one is a gap in the other.
- AllTrails vs Apple Maps
- Apple Maps vs Bing Maps
- Bing Maps vs CARTO
- CARTO vs CesiumJS
- CesiumJS vs Citymapper
- Citymapper vs deck.gl
- deck.gl vs Esri ArcGIS
- Esri ArcGIS vs Foursquare Places API
Go straight to the numbers
- AllTrailspricingalternatives
- Apple Mapspricingalternatives
- Bing Mapspricingalternatives
- CARTOpricingalternatives
- CesiumJSpricingalternatives
- Citymapperpricingalternatives
Questions people ask about maps software
Answered from the listings on this page, and nowhere else.
- How much does maps software cost?
- Across the 43 maps tools listed here, paid plans start between $0 and $100 a month, with a median entry price of $5.99. The most expensive single tier published in the category is $1,200 a month (Google Maps Platform). 18 of 43 also publish a $0 plan.
- What is the cheapest maps software?
- 10 of the 43 tools listed here cost nothing at all. Among the ones that charge, Foursquare Places API has the lowest published entry price at $0 a month. Cheapest and best value are different questions: check which tier the capability you need actually appears in before you compare starting prices.
- Is there free maps software?
- Yes, 18 of 43 tools in this category publish a plan priced at $0. 10 of them are free outright, with no paid tier above. A tool is only counted as free here when it publishes a $0 plan, an open-source licence, or a starting price of zero, a free trial does not count.
- How is maps software usually billed?
- freemium (19), open-source (4), subscription (3), free (2), plus 2 less common arrangements, counted across the 43 listings on this page. The distinction that costs money is per-seat versus flat: a per-user plan at the same headline price scales with your headcount and a flat subscription does not. 5 of 43 tools also keep at least one tier unpriced and sold by quote.
- What does maps software actually cover?
- The 43 tools on this page do not describe themselves the same way. The subject tags they carry most often are gis (2), government (2), mapping (2), navigation (2), outdoor (2). That spread is the honest answer to what the category means in practice: it is not one product shape, and two tools filed under maps may overlap on very little.
- How many pricing tiers do maps tools offer?
- 11 of 43 tools here publish a plan breakdown, and the median one has 3 tiers. 6 of 43 publish three or more. More tiers is not generosity, it usually means the capability you are buying for sits two rungs above the advertised price, so price your shortlist at the tier that contains it.
- How many maps tools are listed on Softwr?
- 43 approved maps listings appear on this page, including AllTrails, Apple Maps, Bing Maps, CARTO. Each links to a full breakdown with its pricing tiers and plan detail, and the category can be filtered by price and sorted by rating above. You can also read the shortlist view at /best/maps, which ranks the same set by published rating.
Keep this
Email me these 43 picks
The shortlist for “Maps”, plus a note if any of their prices change.
Keep reading
Neighbouring categories
Adjacent in the same taxonomy, not a ranking.