SeoMap vs. BrightLocal: Geo-Grid vs. Local SEO Suite
BrightLocal is an all-in-one local-SEO platform — citations, listings, reviews, Google Business Profile tools, AI visibility — with a geo-grid module (Local Search Grid) included in every plan and sold in per-location tiers that are priced on request. SeoMap does one thing: Google Maps geo-grid heatmaps, with every price published, flat 1-credit-per-point billing, no per-grid keyword cap, ARP/ATRP/SoLV on every scan and a German UI built for the DACH market. Pick BrightLocal if you want the whole local-SEO toolbox; pick SeoMap if the heatmap is the job.
Last updated: 6 September 2026| Feature | SeoMap | BrightLocal |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing & credits | ||
| Entry-level plan | €29/month (Starter, 3,000 credits, 5 projects) — every price is published | Track / Manage / Grow tiers, all shown as "Price on request" on the pricing page; homepage teaser "from $31/mo"; third-party sources report from about $39/month per location1 |
| Billing model | Metered credits: 1 credit = 1 grid point (queue), 3 credits live. A 7×7 scan is 49 credits. No add-on charges. | Per-location subscription (selector from 1 to 100+ locations), 25% off on annual billing; extra grid keywords and larger grids sold as add-ons at unpublished prices2 |
| Free trial | 500 free credits, no card required | 14 days of full platform access, no credit card required |
| Pre-scan cost control | Cost estimate shown before every scan, plus a hard daily budget cap | Not applicable in the same sense — grid usage is a fixed keyword allowance per plan, not metered per point |
| One-time / lifetime option | €299 once, BYOK (your own DataForSEO key), limited to 100 licenses | None listed on the pricing page |
| Geo-grid scanning | ||
| Grid size range | 5×5 to 21×21 | 3×3, 5×5, 7×7, 11×11 and 15×15 listed on the product page; BrightLocal's 2024 guide says up to 7×7 is included, larger grids via add-ons2 |
| Grid shape & point spacing | Square or circular, spacing freely configurable | Spacing is user-defined; only square grids are shown publicly |
| Keywords per grid | No per-grid keyword cap — the only limit is your monthly credits | 5 keywords per Local Search Grid report, expandable to a maximum of 30 via paid add-ons2 |
| Desktop vs. mobile searches | Both — chosen per scan | Not publicly stated |
| Live scan rendering | A 13×13 scan (169 points) finishes in under 3 minutes; the map fills in point by point while it runs | Not publicly stated |
| Point-level detail | Click any grid point for the full top 20 at that coordinate — ratings, review count and ad flag included | Not publicly stated |
| Business matching | Exact match via Google CID/Place-ID — no fuzzy name matching | Not publicly stated |
| Core metrics | ||
| At-a-glance metrics | ARP, ATRP and SoLV on every scan | "Average Map Rank" is named in BrightLocal's 2024 guide; the current product page names no specific metric, only "rankings" and "visibility"3 |
| Not-found points in the average | ATRP (Average Total Rank Position) folds not-found grid points into the average instead of leaving them out | Not publicly stated |
| Before/after comparison | Two scans side by side with a per-point delta (improved / worse / new / lost); warns automatically if the two configurations aren't comparable | "Then vs Now" view comparing two grids |
| Ranking history over time | Trend chart per project + keyword across every historical scan (ARP/ATRP/SoLV) | Not publicly stated |
| Competitor comparison | Every business ranked by top-3 count across the grid; click a competitor to overlay their points, plus a sparkline of their top-3 share and best rank over past scans | Side-by-side grid against any competitor for the same keyword and reporting period |
| Reporting & sharing | ||
| Public share links | Yes — public link, no login, no account data exposed | Not publicly stated |
| Report export | One click: print-ready report with heatmap, metrics and competitor table; grid points and competitor table also export as CSV | White-labelled reports for agencies; export format not stated |
| White-label branding | Agency and Internal plans — your logo and company name on report exports and public share views, no extra cost | White-labelled reports stated on the Local Search Grid page |
| Automated analysis | Rule-based observations plus a clearly labelled AI paragraph after every scan, included, with a manual regenerate option | AI Insights — turns local-SEO data into prioritized actions, included in all tiers |
| Beyond rank tracking | ||
| AI-answer-engine visibility | Not offered — SeoMap tracks Google Maps rankings only | AI Visibility — how a business appears across ChatGPT and Google AI |
| Citations & listings | Not offered | Citation Builder (from $2/citation), citation accuracy monitoring, listings sync and protection from the Manage tier up |
| Reviews | Opt-in AI sentiment analysis of up to 50 recent Google reviews, max once a week per project — no monitoring, response or generation tooling | Reputation Manager: review monitoring and response, review generation via email/SMS/in-store, publish reviews on your website (Grow tier) |
| Google Business Profile tooling | Profile Watch: opt-in weekly check for changes to website, domain, category, phone, rating or main photo — detects changes, never edits the profile | GBP audit in every tier, GBP post scheduling from the Manage tier up |
| Managed services | None — software only | Managed Local SEO Services from $1,299/month |
| Scale & integrations | ||
| Scheduled / recurring scans | Weekly or monthly per project + keyword — same credit/budget checks as a manual scan, pauses with a stated reason on exhaustion | Ad hoc, weekly or monthly according to BrightLocal's 2024 guide; not stated on the current product page2 |
| Multi-location handling | Free-form project tags plus a cross-project report (ARP/ATRP/SoLV per project and keyword, filterable by tag, CSV export) | Priced per location (1 to 100+); Local Rank Tracker covers up to 100 keywords and four competitors per plan |
| Google Search Console import | One click — projects created automatically, top queries from the last 90 days pre-filled as keywords | Not publicly stated |
| API access | Read-only REST API (projects, scans, grid points), self-managed keys, included on every plan | "API Solutions" offered at a custom price |
| Bulk scans | Agency: CSV bulk scans, overnight scheduling and custom company name/logo on reports. | Not publicly stated |
| Market focus | ||
| Interface & regional focus | German UI, built for DACH local SEO | English-first, UK/US-rooted, global scope |
- BrightLocal's pricing page (fetched 2026-09-06) shows all three tiers — Track, Manage, Grow — as "Price on request" with a per-location selector. The "from $31/mo" figure is a teaser on BrightLocal's homepage and the page doesn't say which plan or billing period it refers to. The roughly $39 / $49 / $59 per-month single-location figures come from third-party pricing round-ups and BrightLocal's own 2024 buyer's guide ("From $39 per month"), not from the live pricing page — treat them as reported, not current list price, and check BrightLocal directly before budgeting.
- The 5-keyword-per-grid allowance, the expansion to a maximum of 30 keywords via paid add-ons, the 7×7 included / up to 15×15 with add-ons grid limits and the ad-hoc / weekly / monthly run frequency come from BrightLocal's Help Center (visible only as a search snippet on 2026-09-06; the article itself was behind a Cloudflare challenge) and from BrightLocal's geo-grid comparison guide dated 15 July 2024. The pricing page itself only states "up to five keywords" for the Track tier. Add-on prices are not published. Re-verify with BrightLocal before relying on these limits.
- "Local Search Grid" is BrightLocal's product name for its geo-grid module, not a generic term. "Average Map Rank" is described as a proprietary Local Search Grid metric in BrightLocal's 2024 guide; the current product page (fetched 2026-09-06) doesn't name it, so it may have been renamed or retired. No public formula is available, which is why the not-found handling row is marked as not publicly stated rather than guessed.
Who each tool is for
BrightLocal is a platform, and it says so: rank tracking, a geo-grid, citation building, listings management, reputation management, Google Business Profile audits and post scheduling, AI Insights, AI Visibility, an API, and a managed-services arm on top. The Local Search Grid — BrightLocal’s geo-grid module — is one part of that bundle, included in every plan. If you want one login for the whole local-SEO job, across many locations, with the option of handing the work to BrightLocal’s own team, that’s the product it’s built to be.
SeoMap is the opposite shape. It’s built for local-SEO agencies, freelancers and sales teams who need the one picture that closes a pitch or proves a result — a heatmap of where a business actually shows up on Google Maps and where it doesn’t — plus ambitious businesses with several locations who want to watch their own visibility. It doesn’t build citations, respond to reviews or edit a profile. It runs the grid, shows the three numbers, and gets out of the way. Most of it in German, for the DACH market.
Pricing: published metered credits vs. per-location tiers on request
This is the clearest structural difference, and it’s about transparency as much as money. SeoMap publishes everything: Starter at €29/month for 3,000 credits and 5 projects, Pro at €79 for 12,000 credits and unlimited projects, Agency at €199 for 40,000 credits and 10 users, and a €299 one-time lifetime deal where you bring your own DataForSEO key. Credits are flat — 1 credit per grid point on a queue scan, 3 on a live scan — so a 7×7 scan is 49 credits and a 13×13 is 169, and you see the cost estimate before you press start, behind a hard daily cap. Annual billing is two months free.
BrightLocal’s pricing page shows three tiers — Track, Manage, Grow — every one of them marked “Price on request”, with a slider for the number of locations (1 to 100+) and a 25% saving on annual billing. The homepage teases “from $31/mo” without saying which plan that is; third-party round-ups and BrightLocal’s own 2024 guide put single-location plans at roughly $39 / $49 / $59 per month, but those figures aren’t on the live pricing page, so treat them as reported rather than current. What is published: the 14-day full-access trial needs no credit card, citations start at $2 each, managed SEO starts at $1,299/month, and the API is custom-priced.
The grid itself is priced differently, too. BrightLocal’s Track tier includes Local Search Grid for “up to five keywords”; the help center and the 2024 guide describe expanding that to a maximum of 30 keywords, and to larger grids beyond 7×7, through paid add-ons whose prices aren’t public. SeoMap has no keyword cap on the grid at all — a keyword costs the same 49 or 169 credits as any other, and the only ceiling is your monthly allowance.
The grid: depth, shape and what you get per point
Both tools put a grid over a service area and run a real Google Maps search at each point. BrightLocal lists 3×3, 5×5, 7×7, 11×11 and 15×15 grids with user-defined spacing, side-by-side competitor grids for the same keyword and period, and a “Then vs Now” comparison of two grids. SeoMap runs 5×5 up to 21×21, square or circular, with free spacing, on desktop or mobile results, and a 13×13 scan (169 points) fills in live on the map in under three minutes. Clicking any point shows the full top 20 at that coordinate — ratings, review count and ad flag included. The target business is identified by its Google CID/Place-ID rather than its name, which matters when three different “Fahrschule Müller” listings exist in Cologne alone.
Whether BrightLocal’s grid distinguishes desktop from mobile, shows the full result list per point, renders live, or matches businesses by ID isn’t stated on its product page — so those rows are marked as not publicly stated rather than guessed either way.
Metrics: three named numbers vs. one that may have been retired
SeoMap reports ARP (average position where the business is found), ATRP (the same average with not-found points included — the honest number) and SoLV (share of grid points with a top-3 placement) on every scan, and charts all three over every historical scan per keyword. BrightLocal’s 2024 guide names “Average Map Rank” as a proprietary Local Search Grid metric, but the current product page doesn’t mention it — it talks about “rankings” and “visibility” generically. There’s no public formula, and nothing public says how BrightLocal treats points where the business doesn’t appear, so no claim is made here about that either way.
Where BrightLocal goes further
Plenty, and it’s the whole point of the product. AI Visibility tracks how a business appears across ChatGPT and Google AI — SeoMap has nothing comparable and tracks Google Maps only. Citation Builder, citation tracking and listings sync cover the off-profile side of local SEO that SeoMap doesn’t touch. Reputation Manager monitors and answers reviews and generates new ones via email, SMS or in-store; SeoMap’s review feature is an opt-in sentiment analysis of up to 50 recent reviews, once a week at most. BrightLocal audits and schedules posts on a Google Business Profile; SeoMap’s Profile Watch only detects that something on the profile changed, never edits it. The 14-day trial gives full access to the entire platform, the grid is included in every tier, white-labelled reports are stated on the product page, and if you’d rather not do the work yourself there’s a managed-services option — none of which SeoMap offers.
Where SeoMap goes further
On the grid itself and on transparency. Deeper grids (to 21×21), circular as well as square shapes, no per-grid keyword cap, a choice of desktop or mobile results, live point-by-point rendering, the full top 20 at every point, exact CID/Place-ID matching, and three named metrics — including one that counts the points where you weren’t found — with a trend line across every scan. Every price is published and every scan shows its cost up front, behind a hard daily cap. Recurring weekly or monthly scans, a cross-project report that lines up ARP/ATRP/SoLV for many locations and keywords in one taggable table, one-click Google Search Console import, public share links with no login, and a read-only REST API included on every plan round it out. And the interface is German, built for agencies and businesses working the DACH market rather than as a regional setting inside an English-first platform.
The honest take
These aren’t two versions of the same product. BrightLocal is a local-SEO operating system with a geo-grid inside it; SeoMap is the geo-grid, done with more depth and no bundled extras. If your team needs citations, listings, review management, AI visibility or someone to do the work for you, BrightLocal is the sensible choice and its 14-day full-access trial costs nothing to test. If the heatmap is the deliverable — for a pitch, a client report or a before/after proof — and you’d rather know exactly what you’re paying per point, that’s the problem SeoMap set out to solve. Start with 500 free credits and run a real scan on a business you know before deciding either way.
Frequently asked questions
Does BrightLocal publish its prices?
Not on its pricing page as of September 2026 — all three tiers (Track, Manage, Grow) are shown as "Price on request" with a selector for the number of locations. The homepage carries a "from $31/mo" teaser, and third-party sources plus BrightLocal's own 2024 buyer's guide report single-location plans from around $39/month. SeoMap publishes every price: €29, €79 and €199 per month, plus a €299 one-time lifetime deal.
Is SeoMap cheaper than BrightLocal?
It can't be answered like-for-like, because BrightLocal's current list prices aren't public and the two products aren't the same size. SeoMap's Starter plan is €29/month for 3,000 credits (about 60 compact 7×7 scans) across 5 projects, with no per-keyword grid cap. BrightLocal bundles far more than a geo-grid — citations, listings, reviews, GBP tools — and prices per location. If you only need the heatmap, you're paying BrightLocal for a lot you won't use; if you need the rest of the toolbox, SeoMap doesn't sell it.
How many keywords can I scan on a grid?
In SeoMap, as many as your monthly credits cover — there's no per-grid keyword limit, and each scan is priced flat at 1 credit per grid point. BrightLocal's Local Search Grid includes 5 keywords per report, expandable to a maximum of 30 through paid add-ons, according to its help center and 2024 guide (the add-on prices aren't published).
Does SeoMap build citations, manage listings or handle reviews like BrightLocal?
No. SeoMap tracks Google Maps rankings and nothing else. It has an opt-in AI sentiment analysis of recent Google reviews and an opt-in Profile Watch that flags changes to a Google Business Profile, but no citation building, listings management, review response or review generation. BrightLocal covers all of that — plus AI visibility across ChatGPT and Google AI and an optional managed-services tier — which is exactly why it's the right pick for teams that want one platform for the whole local-SEO job.
Can I switch from BrightLocal to SeoMap?
There's no automated import from BrightLocal. You'd relink each business via its Google Maps listing — or import projects and keywords in one click from Google Search Console — and run a fresh baseline scan. That's the same one-time setup as any new project, and the 500 free credits cover a couple of real scans before you commit.