Business Builder MapComparison
Investment map software compared
Agencies and zones that want investors to find their land online often look at five kinds of tool. We make one of them, Business Builder Map, so read this with that in mind. Every statement about another product comes from its own website, read on 17 October 2026, and the sources are listed at the end.
The short answer
From FT Locations. Puts property search and location data, such as demographics, workforce and wages, on an economic development website. Suits cities and regions that market commercial sites and buildings.
From FT Locations. Maps and tracks the investment projects in a location, using fDi Markets data.
From Strata Platforms. Lists sites and buildings on a marketplace that site selectors search, and shows them on the organisation's own website.
From Esri. A GIS platform: the organisation's own team builds sites with Hub and runs market and site analysis with Business Analyst.
For agencies, economic zones and industrial parks with plots to fill: investors compare plots on a map, get a ranked shortlist for their project and book a plot online.
Side by side
| Business Builder Map | ZoomProspector | InvestmentMap | LocationOne and LOIS | ArcGIS Hub and Business Analyst | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Main job | Take an investor from first look to a booked plot | Property search and location data on an EDO or IPA website | Map and track investment projects in a location | Property listing marketplace, plus property marketing on the EDO website | Build sites and run GIS analysis in house |
| Made for | Investment promotion agencies, economic zones, industrial parks, cities | Economic development organisations and investment promotion agencies | Investment promotion agencies and EDOs (licensed in the US and Canada) | EDOs, utilities, railroads, property owners | Organisations with GIS staff and ArcGIS licences |
| What is on the map | Plots with boundary, size, zoning, price, status, utilities and incentives | Commercial sites and buildings, with broker and MLS feeds | Investment projects, by sector, origin, type and time | Sites and buildings listed by subscribers | Whatever the team publishes |
| Location data | Workforce estimate in the catchment tool, zone insights | Demographics with five-year projections, labour force, wages, spending | fDi Markets investment data | Not described on the pages we read | Demographic, business, spending and census data (Business Analyst) |
| Matching a project to a site | Four questions, then a ranked shortlist with the reason for each score | Community and property search with criteria | Not described | Search filters such as infrastructure and transport | Suitability analysis by the team's analysts |
| Online plot booking | Yes, following the organisation's own rules | Not described | Not described | Not described | Not described |
| On your own website | Runs on your domain with your brand and languages | Embeddable components on your website | Not described | LOIS embedded on your website in your look and feel | Hub sites with your branding |
| Prices published | No: setup fee plus optional annual plan, quoted per project | No | No | Yes: 250 USD a year for 1 property, up to 1,500 USD a year for 10 | No prices on the pages read; Hub has Basic and Premium levels |
ZoomProspector
ZoomProspector, formerly GIS Planning, is sold by FT Locations, part of the Financial Times. It is built for economic development organisations and investment promotion agencies that want location analysis on their own website.
- Property search over commercial sites and buildings, fed from broker firms and MLS systems, or edited by the client.
- Reports on demographics with five-year projections, labour force, wages, consumer spending and talent pool, plus an optional FDI report based on fDi Markets.
- Six components that can be embedded on separate pages of the client's website.
- Lead Gen ID, which names companies looking at the website.
It is a strong fit for a US or Canadian city or region that markets buildings and sites through brokers and wants rich demographic data next to them.
InvestmentMap
InvestmentMap, also from FT Locations, maps the investment projects in a location. Projects can be filtered by sector, country of origin, investment type and timeframe, and the data comes through an API to databases including fDi Markets. FT Locations says it is licensed by federal and subnational economic development organisations in the US and Canada.
It shows who has invested and where. Its product page does not describe land or property listings.
LocationOne and LOIS
LocationOne is a property marketplace run by Strata Platforms of Greenville, South Carolina. Utilities, railroads and economic development organisations list certified and ready-to-build sites and buildings, and site selectors search them for free. LocationOne states 55,000 property listings on its homepage.
Listing prices are published: 250 USD a year for 1 property, 450 USD for 2, 750 USD for 5 and 1,500 USD for 10. LOIS, the sister product, shows an organisation's properties on its own website, in its own look and feel.
It fits an organisation that wants its sites in front of US site selectors quickly and at a known price.
ArcGIS Hub and Business Analyst
Esri sells GIS software to economic development teams. ArcGIS Hub lets an organisation build public websites from templates, with its own branding and little or no code. ArcGIS Business Analyst combines demographic, business, spending and census data with map analysis, for analysts and GIS managers.
This is the route for an organisation with GIS staff and ArcGIS licences that wants to design its own portal. Investor features such as plot matching or booking are not described on the pages we read, so the team would build them.
Building your own
Some governments build their own land portals. India's Industrial Land Bank, developed by DPIIT with Invest India and MeitY, maps more than 4,500 industrial parks over 5.06 lakh hectares, according to Invest India. The Comunidad de Madrid publishes Portal del Suelo, a map of plots for sale or concession owned by the region and participating municipalities.
These portals show that the need is real. Each one is built and kept current by a public body of its own.
Where Business Builder Map fits
Business Builder Map starts from the plot. An agency or zone puts every plot on one map with its boundary, size, zoning, price, status, utilities and incentives. Investors filter and compare, run Site Selection for a ranked shortlist, test the business case with investor tools and book a plot online, on the organisation's own domain and in its languages.
It is the closest fit when the job is to fill plots: an economic zone, an industrial park, or an agency with a land bank. If the main need is US demographic reports on brokered buildings, ZoomProspector is built for that. If the need is a cheap listing in front of US site selectors, LocationOne is. If the team already has ArcGIS and GIS staff, building on Hub is a real option.
The Demo Zone shows the whole flow on a sample region with 117 plots.
Sources, read on 17 October 2026
- ZoomProspector, FT Locations product page
- ZoomProspector national portal
- InvestmentMap, FT Locations product page
- LocationOne homepage
- LocationOne listing prices
- LOIS property marketing, Strata Platforms
- LocationOne property listings, Strata Platforms
- Esri, GIS for economic development
- Esri, business retention, expansion and attraction
- ArcGIS Hub overview
- ArcGIS Business Analyst overview
- Invest India on the India Industrial Land Bank
- Comunidad de Madrid GeoPortal, Portal del Suelo
ZoomProspector, InvestmentMap, LocationOne, LOIS, ArcGIS and fDi Markets are trademarks of their owners. Business Builder Map is not affiliated with any of them.
Questions
What is the difference between ZoomProspector and Business Builder Map?
ZoomProspector puts property search and location data, such as demographics, labour force and wages, on an economic development website, with listings fed from brokers and MLS systems. Business Builder Map is built around plots: investors compare plots on a map, get a ranked shortlist for their project and book a plot online.
Which investment map tools let investors book a plot online?
Of the commercial products on this page, only Business Builder Map describes online plot booking on its product pages. The others focus on property search, listings, investment tracking or GIS analysis.
Is this comparison neutral?
No comparison written by a vendor is fully neutral. We checked every statement about other products on their own websites on 17 October 2026 and list the sources. Corrections are welcome at [email protected].
Read next
- Choosing investment promotion softwareWhat to look for in investment promotion software for an agency, economic zone or city: a checklist of ten questions to ask any vendor before you choose.Read
- About Business Builder MapBusiness Builder Map in one page: what it is, who it is for, what investors can do, how a launch works, data formats, languages and pricing model.Read
- How plot matching worksHow Business Builder Map ranks plots: four questions, a review, then a shortlist scored on size, zoning, infrastructure and access, with reasons.Read
Demo Zone
See it working on a whole region
A sample region with 117 plots: the Investment Map, Site Selection, investor tools and online booking. No sign-up.
