> Source: https://www.k-stra.com/geomarketing/choosing-a-geomarketing-tool/ > Updated: 2026-11-03 Geomarketing · Choosing software # How do I choose a geomarketing tool? Every vendor shows a good-looking map. Ten questions separate the tools that answer your questions from the ones that only look as if they do. In short Choose a geomarketing tool on ten questions: how fine its geography is, how fresh and dated its data, whether catchments follow the road network, whether you pay a licence or per use, whether you can try it freely, see prices first and export results, whether your data stay yours, where everything is stored, and whether it covers your market. [Test K-Stra on your address](https://www.k-stra.com/a/?src=geomarketing-choosing-a-geomarketing-tool) Ten questions ## Which questions should you ask any geomarketing vendor? 1. ### How fine is the geography, really? Counts by postcode put a whole postcode at one distance. Residents placed on addresses can be counted inside any shape. 2. ### How fresh is the data, and is every year stated? A population figure two years old understates growth areas. A year that is not stated cannot be checked. 3. ### Are catchments drawn on the road network? Circles cross rivers and ignore motorways; on coasts and rivers the difference in residents is large. 4. ### Do you pay a licence, or for what you use? A yearly licence costs the same in a quiet year; pay-per-use follows the work. 5. ### Can you try it without a contract or a sales call? A demo shows what the vendor chooses; your own address shows whether it works for you. 6. ### Do you see the price before each analysis? Surprise charges are the usual complaint about usage-based software. 7. ### Can you export the results, at no extra cost? Results locked in the tool are hard to put in a report, a board paper or another system. 8. ### Do your own data stay yours? Customer and sales files are among the most sensitive data a company has. 9. ### Where are the data stored, and what leaves the country? Many organisations need to know where files physically sit, and which services see them. 10. ### Does it cover your market and your sectors? A tool built for another country or another industry needs years of local data to be useful. Weighing them ## Which questions matter most for your business? For a single opening, the first three decide everything: if the geography is coarse, the data old or the catchment a circle, the answer will be wrong however good the rest. Pricing and trials matter next, because an occasional user should not pay for a year. For a chain, a franchisor or a consultancy uploading customer and sales files, questions eight and nine move to the top. The answer should name the providers involved and the countries they operate in, not just say “secure”. Compare tools on these criteria with your own address and your own question, not on the vendor’s demo. A good tool shows its limits as clearly as its features: what it does not count, and where its numbers are estimates. Our answers ## How does K-Stra answer the ten questions? The ten questions and K-Stra’s answers Question What K-Stra answers 1\. How fine is the geography, really? Residents spread onto 14.5 million address points (October 2026); nine administrative levels from Australia to SA1. 2\. How fresh is the data, and is every year stated? ABS population at 30 June 2025; businesses and property listings refreshed monthly; every table carries its source and year. 3\. Are catchments drawn on the road network? Drive and walk times on the road network, with average or heavy traffic and without motorways; road distance and radius too. 4\. Do you pay a licence, or for what you use? Credits spent only when an analysis runs; no subscription required, no fee per seat. A failed run costs nothing. 5\. Can you try it without a contract or a sales call? Map, catchments and area dashboards without an account; 40 credits with a free account, no card. 6\. Do you see the price before each analysis? Every paid analysis shows its cost and your balance after it, and runs only when you confirm. 7\. Can you export the results, at no extra cost? PDF, Excel, CSV and KML exports, map images and reports, all free. 8\. Do your own data stay yours? Your datasets belong to your organisation: visible to your team by default, or private to you if you choose, and never included in shared links. They can be marked to be deleted 24 hours after upload. 9\. Where are the data stored, and what leaves the country? A dedicated server in Sydney; the three steps that can see your files are listed below, with the full list of providers. 10\. Does it cover your market and your sectors? Australia at address level, with the rest of Oceania being mapped; 78 business sectors and more than 2 million businesses (K-Stra places catalogue, October 2026). K-Stra runs on a dedicated server in Sydney: your datasets, your analyses and your results stay in Australia. Map tiles, payments and sign-in never see your files. Three steps can: geocoding sends only the address text, and only after you confirm; the AI assistant reads column names and values when you ask it about a dataset; email notifications carry figures from your analysis.[Where your data lives](https://www.k-stra.com/product/coverage/#where-your-data-lives) . Mark a dataset “session only” and it is deleted 24 hours after upload. And the limits, stated as plainly: K-Stra is a desktop product for screens of 1,280 pixels and wider; it counts residents, so visitors and workers are outside its models; and people-movement data is not part of it today. The full list of providers is on the sub-processors page . Worked example ## What does occasional use cost on a pay-per-use tool? Take a business that checks three possible openings in a year. For each it runs one sector analysis at 40 credits, a five-topic profile of the residents at 2 credits a topic and a comparison of three candidate sites at 20 credits a site. The year comes to 330 credits, inside a single 600-credit Project pack, which is valid for 12 months. Maps, tables and exports add nothing; a year without openings costs nothing. Prices per pack are on the [pricing page](https://www.k-stra.com/pricing/) . *[Image: The K-Stra confirmation window before an analysis runs: the area, the four indicators chosen, the surface, the total cost in credits and the balance after it, with buttons to cancel or run.]* Price first The cost before the runEvery paid analysis opens this window first: what will run, what it costs and what is left after it. Nothing is charged until you confirm. Source: K-Stra price list in force since 2 October 2026; credits per analysis as published on the pricing page. FAQ ## What else do people ask when choosing a geomarketing tool? ### What is the most important thing to check in a geomarketing tool? The data behind the maps: how detailed, how recent, and whether each figure states its source and year. A polished interface on old or coarse data gives confident wrong answers. ### Is a GIS a geomarketing tool? A GIS can do geomarketing, but it expects you to source the data and build each analysis. A geomarketing tool comes with the data joined and the analyses ready for business questions. Which suits you depends on whether you have GIS analysts. ### Should I choose a subscription or pay per use? A subscription suits teams that analyse every week; pay-per-use suits occasional projects. Check whether the usage model shows prices before each run, and whether unused credit expires — in K-Stra, packs expire after 12 months. ### What questions should I ask about data privacy? Whether uploaded files stay private, whether you can delete them on demand or automatically, which outside services can see them and in which countries, and whether shared links ever include your own data. Related pages - [Location intelligence vs geomarketing vs GIS](https://www.k-stra.com/geomarketing/location-intelligence/) - [How credits work](https://www.k-stra.com/pricing/how-credits-work/) - [Coverage and where data lives](https://www.k-stra.com/product/coverage/) - [Data sources and years](https://www.k-stra.com/product/data/) - [System requirements](https://www.k-stra.com/product/system-requirements/) - [Frequently asked questions](https://www.k-stra.com/faq/) Try it ## Ask K-Stra the ten questions yourself. Open the app without an account, draw a catchment around your own address and see the data and the prices. [Open the app — free to explore](https://www.k-stra.com/a/?src=geomarketing-choosing-a-geomarketing-tool) Exploring the map is free; you pay only for the analyses you run