Best POI Data Provider for Quality Point of Interest Data: Compare by Coverage, Accuracy & Use Case

Choosing the wrong POI data provider costs more than money. It costs accuracy, wasted engineering hours, and decisions made on outdated information. This guide compares the 7 leading point of interest data providers across coverage, update frequency, attribute depth, and pricing model, so you can match the right dataset to your use case in a few minutes.

How to choose a POI data provider

Not all geospatial data providers are equal. If you’re trying to figure out where to buy POI data, or which point of interest database actually fits your use case, your team should be able to answer six questions about any provider before signing a contract.

1. Is the data credible and reliable?
   Look at how the provider actually sources its point of interest database. Licensed business directories, satellite imagery, and direct data partnerships tend to produce more reliable results than purely crowdsourced contributions.

    

2. What does the data cover, and where are the gaps?
   No POI data provider covers everything equally well. Some excel at retail and dining categories but thin out for healthcare or government locations. Map the provider’s strengths against the categories your project actually needs.

    

3. Is there reliable POI data for the entire US, or just major metros?
   Coverage claims can be misleading. A provider might publish an impressive global POI count while having sparse, outdated records in smaller US markets or rural areas. Ask for a coverage breakdown by state or region before committing, not just a national total.

    

4. How accessible is the data, and how much processing does it take?
   Some providers hand you a clean, analysis-ready point of interest database. Others require significant cleanup, deduplication, or schema mapping before the data is usable. Factor that processing time into your real cost comparison.

    

5. What’s the update frequency?
   This is one of the most important factors in finding the best POI dataset for any time-sensitive use case. Businesses relocate, close, and rebrand constantly, so a dataset that refreshes every three to six months will already be stale by the time you use it for high-stakes decisions like site selection.

    

6. What are the usage rights and licensing terms?
   Some providers restrict their data to internal use only. Others allow consumer-facing applications but only in narrow contexts. Before you buy POI data, confirm the license actually permits what you intend to build, since fixing this after the fact can mean re-licensing or starting over with a different provider.

    

Beyond these six criteria, two underlying factors are worth calling out specifically, since they tend to separate strong providers from weak ones at scale.

Data relevance. Define your use case before you start comparing vendors. A massive point of interest database is only valuable if it covers the categories, geographies, and attributes your project actually needs.

Data scale and completeness. Volume alone is a weak signal. A provider with 100 million records but sparse attribute fill rates may give you less usable information than a provider with fewer records that are fully documented.

Best POI data providers compared (at a glance)

Figures reflect provider-published marketing claims as of 2026 and can change as providers update their platforms. Always confirm current numbers, attribute lists, and licensing terms directly with the provider before making a purchasing decision.

The 7 best POI data providers

1. SafeGraph 

Best for: Accuracy-focused POI data with building-level precision for analytics and site selection

SafeGraph’s Places dataset covers more than 80 million+ points of interest, with some of the highest attribute fill rates in the industry across nearly 40 attributes. A meaningful share of those records connect to SafeGraph’s Geometry product, which provides polygon-based building footprints and spatial hierarchy metadata, useful for understanding when one location sits inside another, like a store inside a mall. SafeGraph refreshes its Places data monthly, which is faster than the three to six month cycles common among competitors, and delivers data through bulk-flat files, CSV files or common platforms including Snowflake, Amazon S3, Databricks Delta Sharing, and CARTO.

Limitations: SafeGraph’s POI volume is smaller than navigation-first providers like HERE, TomTom, or Foursquare, since SafeGraph prioritizes attribute depth and update frequency over raw record count.

2. Foursquare

Best for: Global POI coverage reinforced through first-party app verification

Foursquare’s Places dataset now spans 100 million plus points of interest across 200 plus countries, with attributes like location, chain, hours, social media, tips, photos, and popularity. The company’s FSQ OS Places initiative, launched as an open-source release under the Apache 2.0 license, makes a core set of attributes free for commercial use and updates the dataset monthly. Foursquare’s data also flows through platforms that represent more than 80% of all programmatic ad spend, which signals broad adoption in advertising and audience use cases.

Limitations: Foursquare’s enriched data, including user-generated tips and photos, still draws partly from voluntary check-ins, which means coverage and depth can vary by location. Foursquare’s data also comes with strict licensing restrictions, since it is provided under a limited, revocable license that must be used only within your application, and it cannot be stored, merged, or redistributed into your own dataset.

3. Precisely

Best for: Coverage of many POI types worldwide, especially within an existing Precisely data stack

Precisely is known primarily for its data management tools, but it maintains a global geospatial data portfolio as well. Each POI includes more than 40 attributes, such as business name, address, and phone number, organized within a global schema, and the data is available in API-ready formats. Precisely’s POI data also includes polygon-based building footprints and integrates easily with the company’s other geospatial products through the PreciselyID location standard.

Limitations: The same PreciselyID standard that makes integration easy can also produce duplicate entries within the dataset. Precisely’s data also lacks spatial hierarchy metadata, so it doesn’t clearly indicate when a place sits inside a larger structure. Pricing tends to run higher than other providers on this list.

4. HERE Technologies

Best for: High-volume global POI data with strong search, filter, and route-based discovery

HERE’s database includes more than 120 million points of interest and 400 million physical locations globally. The platform stands out for its search and filtering capabilities, including the ability to find specific categories like EV charging stations or cuisine-specific restaurants, or POIs along a planned travel route.

Limitations: HERE’s primary focus remains navigation, with business location data as a secondary offering, which means attribute completeness can lag behind providers built specifically around place data. Costs can also rise quickly once usage moves beyond free or entry-level tiers.

5. TomTom

Best for: Wide global POI coverage with descriptive attributes at competitive prices

TomTom’s POI database covers comprehensive location data for almost 200 countries worldwide, with over 131 million POIs, and most records include rich descriptive attributes. As one of the original commercial GPS companies, TomTom’s location infrastructure is mature and well documented.

Limitations: TomTom’s focus on mapping and navigation, rather than place-specific data, means completeness can be inconsistent for non-navigation use cases. Coordinates are also typically based on street addresses rather than building centroids, which can reduce precision for site-selection or geofencing work.

6. Google Places

Best for: Comprehensive coverage with imagery, reviews, and social sentiment data

Google’s Places API draws on the company’s vast mapping infrastructure to deliver one of the most complete POI datasets available, including streetside imagery and user-submitted reviews. Pricing is billed at the SKU level rather than as a single flat rate, with categories split into Essentials, Pro, and Enterprise tiers, and Google also offers monthly subscription plans alongside its pay-as-you-go pricing.

Limitations: Google’s data is only accessible through its API under strict usage terms, and costs can climb quickly when an implementation requests a broader field mask than it actually needs, calls Place Details too early in the user journey, or lets autocomplete traffic run without limits. For teams without dedicated engineering resources to manage SKU-level billing, Google Places can become an expensive and unpredictable line item.

7. OpenStreetMap

Best for: Free geospatial data for teams with the technical and legal capacity to use it

OpenStreetMap is the most widely known open-source global geospatial database. It charges no licensing fee, which makes it an appealing option for budget-constrained projects, academic research, or open-source tools.

Limitations: OSM’s licensing terms and non-standardized data formats can make the data more complicated to collect and use than a commercial alternative. Because contributions come primarily from volunteers and a small nonprofit foundation, accuracy and update consistency can vary significantly by region.

Which provider is right for your use case

Retail site selection.
SafeGraph for building-level polygon accuracy, or HERE for sheer POI volume across a wide footprint.

Financial analysis and investment research.
SafeGraph or Precisely, where attribute depth and category precision matter more than raw record count.

Urban planning and smart cities.
OpenStreetMap or HERE, both of which offer broad geographic coverage suited to public-sector and planning use cases.

Navigation and mapping apps.
TomTom or HERE, given their roots in commercial GPS and routing technology.

Consumer apps and local discovery.
Foursquare or Google Places, both of which include user-generated content like reviews, tips, and photos.

Budget-constrained or open-source projects.
OpenStreetMap, particularly for teams with in-house GIS and legal expertise to manage licensing.

What attributes should POI data providers have in their data?

POI data is typically organized into tables. Rows represent the points of interest covered, and columns represent the attributes that describe each one. Quality POI data needs both: a large number of places, and rich enough detail on each place to make the data actually useful.

Strong POI datasets generally include the following attribute categories.

Location, usually as a street address, latitude and longitude coordinates, or ideally both.

Contact information, including the place’s name, mailing address, and phone number. Stronger datasets also include website and social media details.

Categorization, which explains what kind of place it is. Most providers use NAICS codes to standardize business categories, sometimes supplemented with additional tags for more specific context, like cuisine type for a restaurant.

Branding, covering the company or brand operating at a location, along with its parent company, NAICS classification, stock market designation, and countries of operation.

Location-specific business information, such as a unique franchise ID, hours of operation, opening date, and closure date if applicable.

Get quality POI data from SafeGraph

The strongest POI datasets share four traits: they reflect current reality as closely as possible, they include enough relevant detail to be useful, they update frequently enough to limit data decay, and they come with licensing terms flexible enough to support your actual use case.

SafeGraph’s Places dataset is built around those four traits. It covers more than 80 million points of interest, with high fill rates across nearly 40 attributes, and monthly updates that keep your data current. For projects that need building-level precision, SafeGraph’s Geometry product adds polygon-based footprints and spatial hierarchy data on top of Places. Data is available as a CSV file or through platforms including Snowflake, Amazon S3, Databricks Delta Sharing, and CARTO.