Even before the pandemic hits, geofencing software is valuable for various industries and organizations (profit and non-profit). If you’re planning to purchase one, this guide is perfect for you.
Running a small business for over a decade, one thing I’ve learned is continuously creating a new shopping experience for customers. Including geofencing technology in your ad campaigns or in-apps happens to be one of the most influential trends to adapt.
This trend is backed up by a recent statistic stating that 53% of shoppers visited a specific retailer after receiving a location-based alert message.
If you’re canvassing the best geofencing software, here are my top 7+ recommendations, including their pros, cons, pricing rates, and more.
- What Is The Best Geofencing Software?
- 1. Radar – Top Pick
- 2. PlotProjects – Best Value For Money
- 3. VISIT Local – Most Features
- 4. PathSense – Recommended For Developers
- 5. Beaconstac – All-In-One Proximity Marketing Suite
- 6. I’m Here App – Simplest Platform For Geofencing
- 7. Purple – Wayfinding & Geofencing Technology
- 8. Geofency Time Tracking
- Conclusion
What Is The Best Geofencing Software?
If you’re in a hurry, you can check out my top 3 picks instead: Radar, PlotProjects, and Reveal Mobile.
   5.0 |   4.6 |   4.1 |
| Best overall. Intuitive platform with reliable and geofencing capabilities. Starts at $500/month. | Best value for money. All-in-one geofencing platform for an affordable price. Starts at $100/month. | Most features. Geofencing software with marketing capabilities and tools. Free version available. |
| Try Radar | Try PlotProjects | Try Reveal Mobile |
If you want to know the full details of which geofencing software is best suitable for your business or app, here you go.
1. Radar – Top Pick
Geofencing Software For Every App & Device [Free | $500 a month]
The number of geofences available, accuracy, and reliability are some of the elements you need to find in geofencing software.
Radar landed on the top pick because it provides unlimited geofence options. For circular geofences, you can create one with a minimum of a 10-meter radius and 1,000 sq. meters for polygons.
In terms of reliability and accuracy, all created geofence events have confidence levels ranging from 1 (low) to 3 (high).
On top of that, it boasts a user-friendly interface. Whether you’re a developer or business owner, you can surely use the software with ease.
There are three steps you can follow to get started. The first step is configuring geofences either by creating a custom one (by drawing) or importing.
You also have the option to enable out-of-the-box geofences detection for places or regions.
The next step is integrating its SDK or API into your platform (app or website). The SDK works by writing a few lines of code to add the following:
- Geofencing
- Location tracking
- Trip tracking
- Geocoding
- Search function to your apps
- GPS tracking
It can support iOS, Android, and web platforms.
On the other hand, the API serves as a building block. You can use it for any of the following purposes:
- Pickup and delivery tracking
- Location-triggered notifications
- Location verification
- Store locators
- Address autocomplete
And the list goes on.
Unlike with SDK, API requests require authentication (under Settings page) and include an authentication level.
If you want to experiment with their APIs without writing codes, you can use their simulator (placed inside the dashboard). Here are a few things you can do in the simulator:
- Generate updates for the locations and events you’ve created
- Simulate a specific user by going to the Users page then press the Simulate button
- Simulate a trip by setting up the appropriate fields (externalId, destinationGeofenceTag, and destinationGeofenceExternalId)
The last step is enabling the integrations.
The options provided will vary on your subscription plan. The free plan allows you to create a webhook, while the paid plans offer server-side integrations and plugins.
Currently, there are 18 apps available, and most of them are designed for the following functions:
- Marketing
- Operations
- Product
- Data
- In-store teams
If you’re searching for a provider in creating real-world geofenced locations then Radar is simply a no-brainer platform to choose.
Burkhard Berger
Radar geofencing software can also detect Bluetooth beacons. Upon importing your beacons, its system will automatically sync all the nearby beacons captured to the SDK in every location update.
Pros And Cons Of Radar
| Pros | Cons |
| Offers solutions for digital marketplaces, travel, entertainment, logistics, and businesses with physical stores | Customer support provided varies on your purchased subscription plan (dedicated support is only offered for the highest plan) |
| Manages single to multiple projects and accounts | Limited app options for integrations (total of 18) |
| Includes a complete arrival detection toolkit for pickup and delivery | |
| Software offers a 1-year free of use for startups (terms and conditions apply) |
Radar Pricing Plan
Radar geofencing software is offered in three plans where each is designed for a specific user type:
- Developer (Free): It provides all features to configure geofences, forward geocode quickly, autocompletes partial addresses and place names, and calculate travel distances.
- Team ($500/mo.): Include additional features for using a place database and detects users per country, state, DMA, or postal code. Higher limits are also set.
- Enterprise (Custom Pricing): Include more advanced features and unlimited capacities. They also made available a single sign-on and SLA.
You may contact Radar Labs’ sales representative to get a personalized pricing quote.
2. PlotProjects – Best Value For Money
Geofencing & Location-Based Marketing Software [Free | $100 a month]
The PlotProjects system is primarily designed to work with geofences and notifications.
The geofences merely represent a specific geographic area. You can create as many as you want with a range from 50 to 50,000 meters.
Circular is its usual shape, but you have the option to create a polygon.
The polygon is ideal for creating and displaying the exact measurements of a location. Airports and parks are a few of the best sites for this geofence shape.
If you want to detect micro-locations as well, you can use the beacon.
You can create a beacon with a range of 0 to 30-meter radius and have a battery lifespan of up to 24 months.
Are you wondering what beacon vendors PlotProjects support?
The good news is, they support all available vendors in the market today. But they do recommend Estimote or Kontakt.io beacons.
Each geofence you create comes with real-time push notifications.
When setting a notification, make sure to specify the time spans. You can arrange a notification with a start time only to remain active until you decide to end it.
Or, set it with an end time only.
Complete the notification with a personalized message for a better customer experience so you can further entice users to visit your store. It will start working as soon as the users enter or exit your geofences at the specific times you’ve set.
Walking, cycling, and driving a car slowly can trigger the notification.
By default, a notification can only be sent to a specific user once. But if you want to resend it, you can go to your dashboard and define the periods by week, month, or year.
Understanding the performance of the geofences is made simpler using its powerful analytics.
It includes A/B testing and heatmaps to ensure you can identify blind spots and better understand your users’ behavior and customer engagement.
These analytics are especially useful for optimization on marketing strategies such as mobile ads or target users that you have had in mind.
If you want to get more insights or use marketing automation, integrate your business platforms into your app. PlotProjects SDK allows several CDP, MMA, DMP, or CRM platforms.
Burkhard Berger
PlotProjects may be designed as a location-based marketing platform, but rest assured they’re not limited to that function. They also have tons of successful use cases for industries like aviation, logistics, healthcare, and more.
Pros And Cons Of PlotProjects
| Pros | Cons |
| Free plan includes a maximum limit of 1,000 monthly tracked users | Customer support provided varies on your purchased subscription plan (dedicated support is only provided for the highest plan) |
| A/B testing and heatmaps available in all plans | Requires you to purchase a different subscription plan if you own more than one app |
| Offers a free migration cost | Limited apps to integrate (total of 12) |
| No limit set for creating notifications |
PlotProjects Pricing Plan
PlotProjects geofencing software is offered in three subscription plans, and it started with a free plan:
- Developer (Free): Get a limit of 10,000 monthly tracked users, 1,000 geofences, and one app to work with.
- Small Business ($100-$500/mo.): Set a higher limit for tracked users each month (50,000), geofences (10,000), and two apps.
- Enterprise (Custom Pricing): The recommended plan if you want to get unlimited capacities and access to all its advanced features.
PlotProjects collaborate with Mobile Company to provide you with the best mobile development services. You can fill up and submit their request form to get a personalized pricing quote.
3. VISIT Local – Most Features
Geofencing Marketing & Advertising Software [Free | Subscription-Based Fee]
Businesses often spend thousands of money on ad campaigns in the hopes of increasing their traffic and, eventually, revenue. But the truth is, you don’t have to spend that much with the right tool on hand.
Reveal Mobile proves that when they launched VISIT Local.
They use geofencing technology and tracking software to do an in-depth analysis and provide you with the following:
- Right users to target
- Reach out to your target audience wherever they go
- Attribution reports identifying your campaign’s impact on your audience
They deliver the first two using location data.
You can access all places and dates (over 18 months) and use them to create high-intent audiences and select any of the pre-mapped areas available.
If your area of interest isn’t included, you can create custom places instead. Through this feature, you can draw polygons and create a virtual boundary on your point of interest.
Since audiences nowadays go into different online platforms, VITAL Local provides you tools to reach them wherever they are. You can create ad campaigns for social media, demand-side platforms, and more.
For optimal reach, you can set your ad campaign to target various devices within a single household.
VISIT Local provides users with a much more powerful tool when it comes to mobile marketing.
If you also have a physical ad like a billboard or signage, you can create a custom place specifically targeting everyone who saw your ads.
Pros And Cons Of VISIT Local
| Pros | Cons |
| Provides intuitive dashboard | Only supports polygon geofence |
| Covers 12 million pre-mapped areas | Limited option to reach out to customer support (live chat only) |
| Attribution reports provide easy-to-understand graphs and charts |
VISIT Local Pricing Plan
VISIT Local geofencing software is offered in fixed monthly subscription pricing plans. You can contact their sales representative to request their pricing information that matches your business needs.
You can also request a demo if you want to take a glimpse of their platform.
The good news is, Reveal Mobile also offers a free version of VISIT Local. Inside the platform, you can search for various business chains and see their visitor trends, foot traffic of the month, best customers, and more.
Go to the VISIT Local Free now and learn how you can leverage from it.
4. PathSense – Recommended For Developers
Android & iOS Geofencing Software [Free | Quotation-Based Plan]
Most entrepreneurs and marketers use geofencing technology that can support all types of devices.
However, mobile devices’ consistent increase in popularity makes them the most dominant device used worldwide. According to Statista, there will be almost 15 billion operating this 2021.
If you want to create your location-based campaigns or service experiences solely for mobile devices, PathSense is the recommended choice.
This software created different SDKs and modules to accurately track paths, visits, trips, mileage, and ambient locations for iOS and Android devices.
Let’s compare their geofence features to give you a clear idea.
For Android devices, the geofence you can create has a minimum size of 50 meters. You can also make background wakeups on Android O, P, Q, and R.
On the other hand, the iOS geofence focuses more on enhancing the iOS departure features.
They deliver this using telematics to quickly wake up your app once it detects the start of the drive. It can do the task for as fast as 30 seconds or less.
They also added privacy and security features for the entire family, such as:
- Send automatic notification once a family member leaves the specified location
- Close the garage door
- No server communication, so your data will stay within your phone
There are more solutions available, and all include amazing features that guarantee to help you achieve success. And you can find all the SDKs and modules (for Android and iOS) available on the Developer Portal.
Burkhard Berger
Getting started with PathSense requires downloading the zip file containing its specific binaries. You can find it under the Downloads tab of the account dashboard.
Pros And Cons Of PathSense
| Pros | Cons |
| Provides a user-friendly developer portal | No detection features for home, work, and travel |
| Contains tons of SDKs and modules | Doesn’t include a third-party integration feature. |
| Includes a demo app with color-coded geofence for quick identification of status | Only provides a live chat option to contact customer support |
PathSense Pricing Plan
PathSense geofencing software is available in two simple plans. You can start with the Starter plan to create one active application and track 1,000 monthly users.
This plan is 100% free, and you can use it for non-commercial deployments.
You can fill up and submit their Price Quote Form for commercial deployments to get personalized pricing tailored for your needs.
5. Beaconstac – All-In-One Proximity Marketing Suite
Geofencing Marketing Platform [$166 a month]
Beaconstac is another excellent location-based marketing platform on my list. It uses different tools to scale your business, and these are:
- Geofences
- Beacons
- NFC tags
- QR codes
For beacons, NFC tags, and QR codes, MobStac also offers compatible hardware to ensure they will work seamlessly on your business premises.
Beacon and geofence may be designed to work differently. Still, their intended result is the same – determine the user’s proximity for a particular location and trigger the appropriate action or campaigns.
Geofence has more advantages since it can pinpoint a specific location on a map and deliver content.
MobStac makes it easier for everyone to set up geofencing with Beaconstac. Simply get their SDK and integrate it with your app.
If you don’t have an app yet, you can use Shoutem.
MobStac partnered with Shoutem, a DIY app-building platform, so that you can create rich apps for any device.
Successful integration will provide you with a dashboard where you can manage everything. You can create geofence with a size ranging from 200 meters to 2,000 meters.
You can also create landing pages, campaigns, offers, forms, and more.
The dashboard also contains simple yet powerful analytics where you can see the following:
- All notifications sent
- Clickthrough rates
- Total number of visitors who viewed the cards, forms, and pages
Pros And Cons Of Beaconstac
| Pros | Cons |
| Allows remote and real-time editing of geofences | Limited to 20 geofences |
| Supports GPS, Cellular, and WiFi for implementing geofences | No direct app building platform for creating mobile apps |
| Runs location-specific offers and time-based campaigns |
Beaconstac Pricing Plan
Beaconstac geofencing marketing solution is available in two monthly/annual subscription plans:
- Advanced: $166/mo.
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
Both allow you to create up to 20 geofences on Android and iOS devices.
Unfortunately, there is no free trial version available for any of the subscription plans. But you can request a free demo for the Enterprise plan.
6. I’m Here App – Simplest Platform For Geofencing
SMS & Geofence App For Android & iPhone Devices [Free]
Most geofencing software requires integration with the marketers’ and business owners’ apps. If you don’t have plans to build a business app, I’m Here app is your best choice.
The main difference between this app and the others I’ve discussed is that it focuses on SMS geofencing marketing.
It starts by running an SMS campaign. Once people subscribe to the campaign, you can send them personalized messages like a special promotion or discount.
But before you can do that, you need to download the app to your mobile device.
Once done, you can immediately create zones for the areas of your interest. You can draw your point of interest on the map and then add colors and labels (home, restaurant, and park) for personalization.
It includes a map view feature so you can quickly see how it looks before going live.
The next step is writing your message. You can send a default message or customize one.
You also have the option to send recurring or one-time messages.
Lastly, you can add your target recipients.
Most businesses use the I’m Here app for tracking package deliveries. But you can also use its geofencing functions for fleet management, child localization, location management, and more.
Burkhard Berger
I’m Here app was only launched in 2019. Since it’s still relatively new, there are areas that it needs to improve, like adding more personalization features, messaging apps supported, and more.
Pros And Cons Of I’m Here App
| Pros | Cons |
| Provides three simple steps to set up | Limited customizable features |
| Doesn’t require you to build your own app | Only provides a contact form to reach out to a customer support representative. |
| Supports SMS messaging, WhatsApp, email, and push notifications |
I’m Here App Pricing Plan
I’m Here app is 100% free to download and use.
You can choose to download it on Google Play or App Store. Recently, they added an enhanced version where you need to download its APK file.
7. Purple – Wayfinding & Geofencing Technology
Wayfinding Product With Location-Based Messaging Feature [By Request]
Unlike the other software I’ve discussed, Purple is not geofencing-centric software. Instead, it’s a platform known for optimizing venues and using geofencing for one of its products.
The product is called Wayfinding.
As the name implies, this product uses Wayfinding technology to improve safety, revenue, and overall visitor experience. It is combined with geofencing technology to create zones to a specific part of your venue, helping new visitors become familiar with your premises.
Also, it delivers timely in-app notifications.
You can automate location-based messages into your desired geofence areas. This is an effective way to inform your visitors about any of the following:
- Business latest updates
- Opening hours
- Special promotions
- Discount offerings
You can also add multilingual options so all your visitors can understand your message no matter what language they speak.
Pros And Cons Of Purple
| Pros | Cons |
| Provides a secure cloud-based platform | Limited functions included |
| Supports data sources from WiFi, sensors, and beacons | Location-based notifications only available on their mobile plan |
| Has multiple methods to reach out to customer support (live chat, local and international phone numbers, contact form, guides, and help center) |
Purple Pricing Plan
If you’re interested in purchasing a Wayfinding product, you need to fill up and submit a request form.
One of Purple’s product experts will reach out to you and present a product demo. They will also propose pricing plans based on your business requirements.
8. Geofency Time Tracking
Geofencing Software For iOS Devices [$3.99, One-Time Fee]
Time tracking and recording is a tedious task. Geofency offers a smart solution to do it with minimal effort but maintains consistent accuracy.
Just like with other geofencing software solutions, you can add new locations with a simple tap.
You can do the location addition directly from the map-view section, so you’ll see how it will look when it goes live. Enable the WiFi and location services on your device to ensure you’ll get the most accurate monitoring results.
After adding your locations, Geofency will start the tracking and recording process.
The platform is equipped with an automatic recognition feature . This feature will automatically detect visitors as they enter or leave any areas of interest.
The journaling feature is responsible for recording where the visitors visited and how long they stayed there.
Make smart and data-based decisions to improve your business. You can easily do so because Geofency provides comprehensive graphics and statistics.
The statistics include a summary for specific periods.
You can export all your data and send it via email (Excel format) for easy reporting. You can easily export it to other platforms like Apple Numbers and Harvest.
Pros And Cons Of Geofency Time Tracking
| Pros | Cons |
| Supports 30+ languages | Can drain your battery life because the app remains to use your location even if it’s close |
| Easy to use and administer | Only provides email support |
| Eliminates the tedious task of manual time recording | Issues and errors may occur when updating your device to iOS 14 |
Geofency Time Tracking Pricing Plan
At a low price of $3.99, you can download and use Geofency automatic location-based time tracking tool. It’s 100% private, so ease your mind that only you can access and view your data.
Go to the Geofency website to learn more about the product.
Conclusion
With geofencing technology’s efficacy and benefits, it isn’t surprising that every business uses it, or almost. If you’re one of them, I recommend PlotProjects.
It’s easy to set up, use, and overall a cost-effective choice.
It’s a plus that it’s private, ensuring that only you can access and see your data. They successfully deliver this by complying with GDPR and CCDA.
Most geofencing software can drain your device’s battery life quickly because they remain active in your background.
PlotProjects find an excellent way to minimize battery usage by using Wifi triangulation for their background service.
Get started today and head over to their site using this link.
I hope I have provided you with quality insights that can help you find the best geofencing software for your business. If you have questions or other software to share, please leave them down in the comment section.