Geo-grid rank tracking without a subscription

You want to see where a business ranks on Google Maps street by street: a grid of points around it, the rank at each point, and who takes the top 3 where it disappears. Local Falcon made the format popular. Here is what it costs there, on Apify, and with PlainRows.

Prices compared

Read on 2026-10-11:

• Local Falcon (localfalcon.com/pricing): monthly plans from $24.99 for 7,500 credits to $199.99 for 63,150 credits; one credit = one grid point, so a 5x5 scan uses 25 credits. If you use all your credits every month, that is about $0.0033 per point on the Starter plan: cheaper than us at volume.
• Geo-grid Actors on Apify: crashlattice57/geo-grid-rank-tracker $0.02 to $0.014 per point; vasram/google-maps-rank-tracker $0.60 per 5x5 scan ($0.024 per point).
• PlainRows Google Maps Rank Tracker: $0.008 per point on the Apify Starter plan, nothing per month to us. A 5x5 grid for one keyword: $0.2, plus $0.002 per run (Actor start).

What you get

Give the business (name and city, Google Maps link, place ID or CID), up to 5 keywords, a 3x3 to 9x9 grid and the spacing between points. For every point and keyword: the business's rank, whether it is in the top 3, and the first 3 places with rating and number of reviews. Then one free summary per keyword: average rank, share of local voice (% of points in the top 3), points where it ranks, the competitor ranked first most often, and the rank grid ready for a heatmap. The business is matched by place ID or CID, never by name; sponsored pins are not counted.

Points where Google Maps returns no place, a business not found and the summary rows are free. A run never goes above the maximum cost you set: keywords whose full grid does not fit in it are left out whole, before any search. Points are searched from the business outwards. A run can still stop part-way through a grid if the data source fails, or if too many searches return no place at all (a grid that reaches out to sea, for example); the points not searched are not charged.

When Local Falcon is the better choice

• You scan thousands of points every month: its credits cost less per point than any pay-per-point tool.
• You want ready-made heatmap reports for clients, with no setup.

When PlainRows is the better choice

• You scan now and then (a few grids a month, a before/after test): no plan to keep, no credits that expire.
• You want the raw data in your own sheet, dashboard or CRM, from n8n, Make, Zapier, an API call or an AI agent (MCP).
• You track competitors too: the top 3 at each point comes with every row, and Google Maps Businesses Scraper gives the place IDs of a whole category in a city.

Competitor facts checked on 2026-10-11 from the linked pages; prices change, check them before you decide.