Point of interest (POI) data is essential for many organizations, government agencies, and professionals looking for detailed information on physical locations such as local retail outlets, financial institutions, or landmarks.
In this post, we explore eight of the best point of interest data providers — giving you insights into the data they provide, the biggest benefits of going with each provider, and advice on who each platform is best for.
What is Point of Interest data?
POI data is data that identifies geographic locations of note such as businesses, national parks, retail shops, hospitals, and schools. This data typically provides essential details on each location — including the name, address, accessibility information, open hours, and contact information. POI data has many uses, from powering navigation apps and location-based services to helping companies perform market analyses.
What to look for in a POI provider?
When reviewing the best POI data providers, it’s important to know what to look for.
The best providers:
- Offer real-time data: they put systems in place to ensure their data is accurate and reflective on points of interest as they are today.
- Data enrichment capabilities: a great provider can provide additional information — such as demographic data, weather data, or data on transportation noise.
- Flexible delivery options: the best providers offer several data delivery options and can provide recommendations on the best data delivery solutions for your needs.
- API access: depending on your needs, API access may be essential. By providing POI data access via an API, you can easily integrate your data into your apps and platforms.
1. ATTOM
As one of the most comprehensive POI solutions on the market, ATTOM’s points of interest data offers insights across 14 business categories and 120 lines of business.
Each POI delivers insightful neighborhood data including:
- Address and latitude and longitude
- Contact information
- Distance from the search location
- Franchise information
While the 14 different categories include:
- Attractions — recreation
- Banks — financial
- Shopping
- Travel
- Eating and drinking establishment
- Education
- Farm — ranch
- Government
- Health care services
- Automotive services
- Hospitality
- Organizations — associations
- Personal services
- Pet services
We also provide several flexible delivery solutions, including:
Who it’s best for
Built for the real estate market, ATTOM’s POI data is ideal for real estate professionals looking to enrich data on neighborhoods for the properties in their databases. It’s also a great solution for real estate investors looking for information on the best investment opportunities.
Beyond the POI solution, ATTOM provides a wide range of real estate data products the POI solution — making ATTOM a brilliant provider for all your real estate data needs.
2. Foursquare
Foursquare’s Places Engine is powered by advanced machine learning algorithms. The platform brings together data from 16B+ check-ins, recorded through their consumer-facing apps. Foursquare is dedicated to keeping their data accurate by tracking real-world changes as and when they happen.
Foursquare also offers impressive coverage by offering 100M+ points of interest across 200+ countries and territories. This data covers over 50 attributes such as location, photos, chain, opening hours, and social media activity — giving you a well-rounded view of different locations.
They offer flexible delivery including TSV, JSON, or Parquet. You can also access this information through their Place API if you’re looking to use it to power your apps.
Who it’s best for
Foursquare puts their focus on delivering consumer-centric data — this makes it an ideal choice for local businesses looking to understand consumer behavior and improve their local marketing.
3. Dataplor
Dataplor provides real-time points of interest data that covers over 250M+ locations and more than 200+ countries & territories. Used by brands such as Accenture and Neighbourlytis, Dataplor is one of the most popular POI data providers.
To ensure accuracy, Dataplor’s data is updated daily and is reviewed by a team to ensure the data is error free and accurate. You can also try out their data before you commit — just request free data sample based on your needs and location.
Who it’s best for
If you’re after more extensive datapoints then Dataplor could be the one to look into as they enrich their POI data with additional information including traffic patterns and economic indicators.
4. Precisely
Precisely boasts global coverage, offering POI data on over 200 countries and territories around the world — giving you access to access to more than 300 million POIs.
Precisely cross-references every dataset to provide deeper insights into each location. They also use a hierarchical classification — classifying POIs into over 18,000 categories for easy identification and analysis. These categories include retail, transportation, government entities, public utilities, and places to eat and drink.
Each POI offers 70 distinct attribute fields connected to the POI’s location, brand, and business profile. These attributes are updated every month to help ensure accuracy with details such as the contact information and address regularly being reviewed to ensure real-time accuracy. Precisely also offers geofences, highlighting the parameters of real-world geographic areas.
Who it’s best for
With a focus on commercial and branded POI data, Precisely is a great choice if you’re looking for an understanding of commercial buildings and markets.
5. Xtract
Xtract.io POI database covers over 6 million locations from 5,000+ companies across 11 different industries throughout the U.S., U.K. and Canada. This solution provides data for 14 different countries and offers insights into 11 different industries including:
- Retail and shopping malls
- Healthcare
- Restaurants
- Park & ride locations
- Automotive
- Public utility points like ATMs
They also include two years of historical data — allowing you to get deeper insights into developments for notable buildings, stores, and other places of interest. Xtract delivers their POI data in several different ways, including XML and CSV.
Xtract help ensure their data is reliable — they claim their POI data is 95% accurate and gets refreshed every 30/60/90.
Who it’s best for
If you need POI data with a global reach that spans several different industries, then Xtract is a great provider to look into.
6. Echo Analytics
Echo Analytics offers POI data on commercial locations around the world — delivering insights into over 80 million points of interest across 210 countries and territories. Echo Analytics providers data on over 16 thousand brands and covers over 6.5 million branded POIs.
To help ensure accuracy, the team use advanced machine learning capabilities — using AI to enrich datapoints and address any missing attributes. They also enrich each POI with a confidence score, brand matching, and related geographical shape data.
Who it’s best for
If you’re interested in global POI data, Echo Analytics is a great option — covering an impressive number of countries and territories.
7. Mapbox
Mapbox is a location data platform that offers a wealth of POI data including information on commercial and recreational establishments, landmarks, and transport.
Each POI typically includes information on:
- Name and description of the POI
- Geospatial coordinates
- Address
- Opening hours
- Contact information
- Category and tags
- Photos and reviews
Mapbox’s Seach Box API was built to help developers build apps with user-friendly navigation and location-based services. You can use their API to offer your users several insights into local businesses and establishments.
Who it’s best for
The Mapbox API is a great tool to investigate if you want to provide real-time data on local places to your app users.
8. Esri
Esri Places Data portfolio provides a range of data that, in their own terms, aims to allow users to understand how the physical and social worlds interact. This data includes building footprints, distinct geographic references, boundaries, and parcels — alongside points of interest data.
Their POI data offers information on locations as well as attribute information for a range of places, including natural attractions, landmarks, businesses, and institutions.
Who it’s best for
If you’re looking to access POI data for personal research or map creation, Esri has a large, active user community where users share support and regularly get involved in collaborations.
8 of the Best POI Data Providers
POI data is useful for a range of professionals and organizations — from government agencies to real estate agents and brokers. Our run down of the top POI data providers gives you a list of the best options out there — with each platform offering comprehensive, high-quality POI data that spans several industries and locations.
Curious to find out more about ATTOM’s POI data? Contact our team of real estate data experts here.
Written by: Jennifer Von Pohlmann