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The 7 best Unacast alternatives in 2026
Huq is our product. Here's how we compared everyone, including us.
Unacast sells location data, foot traffic datasets and APIs to data, adtech and product teams. Its US visitation data releases weekly with history back to October 2018, and it offers cross-visitation and trade area datasets. It merged with Gravy Analytics in late 2023, and G2 reviewers rate it 4.9/5 from 10 reviews.
Why look at Unacast alternatives? It is mainly a data and API vendor, so teams without data engineers often want a dashboard. Some buyers also review vendors after regulatory news. In January 2025 the FTC finalized an order restricting how Gravy Analytics, now part of Unacast, and its subsidiary Venntel handle sensitive location data. Gravy also reported a security incident that month.
We compared seven alternatives on coverage, refresh, delivery and accuracy evidence. Each entry says who it suits and what to check, with sources listed at the end.
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Quick answer
For retail chains, retail property and investors, choose Huq, built to give the broadest set of location data across 35 markets. For a US-only foot traffic dashboard, Placer.ai. For raw mobility data, Veraset. For hedge fund datasets, Advan.
Unacast competitors compared at a glance
How the main Unacast alternatives differ on audience, coverage and level of detail.
In this guide
How we evaluated
- Delivery: API, data feeds, dashboard, or a mix.
- Coverage: countries covered for foot traffic, not just raw mobility.
- Data refresh and history: update cadence and depth of history.
- Accuracy evidence: published validation against known figures.
- Analysis built in: catchment, cross-visitation, dwell and benchmarking without extra engineering.
The best Unacast alternatives, reviewed
1. Huq: best for branded retail chains, retail commercial property, and investors and private equity evaluating retail brands and assets
Unacast sells datasets and APIs that data teams build on. Huq is built for teams that want the broadest set of location data across 35 markets with the analysis already done. In one platform you get footfall by week, month and year, visiting versus passing traffic, residents versus visitors, and catchment and drive-time analysis. Behavior data covers visit frequency, dwell time, time of day, cross-visitation and international visitation for tourism. Huq also reports footfall density and transportation mode, plus POIs, brand locations, brand analysis, industry performance and shopping center and retail center types. Demographics (age, gender, purchasing power) and geo-spend by volume and category are available in selected markets.
Huq delivers data feeds rather than an API. Technical teams receive Parquet and CSV files in their own Amazon S3 or Google Cloud Storage buckets, while commercial teams use the Explore map, Projects for monitoring many sites, CSV and Excel exports and monthly PDF location reports. Data refreshes weekly, and Huq manually validates more than 1,000 locations in each market twice a year. As supporting evidence, Huq reports 81.9% accuracy in Great Britain against a ~65% industry benchmark and 85.5% in Germany. For Unacast users, the trade-off is clear: fewer engineering steps and more countries, in exchange for file-based delivery instead of API calls.
Pros
- Built to give the broadest set of location data in one platform, from footfall and catchment to behavior, density, brands and industries
- 35 markets, with more than 1,000 locations manually validated in each market twice a year
- Catchment, cross-visitation and behavior analysis built in, so no engineering is needed
- Straightforward for commercial teams and analysts alike, with the Explore map, Projects and monthly PDF location reports
- Technical teams get Parquet and CSV data feeds into Amazon S3 or Google Cloud Storage
Cons
- Newer to the US than US-native vendors such as Placer.ai and Advan
- Demographics and spend are available in selected markets only, so check availability for each market you need
- Delivers data feeds (Parquet and CSV into S3 or GCS) rather than an API, so teams wanting on-demand API calls work from files instead
2. Placer.ai: best for US-only teams that want a foot traffic dashboard rather than raw data
Placer.ai (Placer Labs Inc.) is a US foot traffic analytics platform, tagline "Market Intelligence for the Physical World", with 4,000+ customers across retail, commercial real estate, local government, CPG, restaurants, finance and advertising. It estimates visits to places, chains, markets and regions from a panel of tens of millions of mobile devices, using property-level polygons, and says its correlations with first-party sources consistently exceed 90% (a vendor claim). Teams work in a SaaS dashboard that exports CSV, PDF and SHP files, or take data through an API and feeds via Snowflake and AWS. A Data Marketplace adds partner datasets such as sales estimates, demographics and consumer expenditure. Coverage is the United States only.
Where Unacast is data- and API-first, Placer.ai puts a dashboard in front of business users while still offering an API and feeds for data teams. A $75M raise at a valuation near $1.5B in August 2024 and its customer count make it the most established US option. Huq suits buyers who need the same analysis in the US and other countries: 35 markets in one platform, weekly data, and 1,000+ locations manually validated in each market twice a year.
Pros
- Large US customer base of 4,000+ organizations across many sectors
- Dashboard, API and data feeds (Snowflake, AWS) from one vendor
- Data Marketplace adds partner datasets such as sales estimates, demographics and consumer expenditure
- Free tools such as Chain Analysis, Industry Trends and Placer 100
Cons
- US only, so teams with sites abroad need a second provider
- Locations with fewer than 50 unique devices aren't shown, which can affect small or rural sites
- Pricing isn't published, and there's no free trial of the full product (a freemium version exists)
3. Advan Research: best for hedge funds and quant analysts who want US foot traffic and spend datasets
Advan Research is a New York alternative-data company founded by former hedge fund and fintech people. It combines mobile location data with credit and debit card transactions, sold as raw datasets and through web dashboards: FIT for foot traffic, REI for traffic plus spend, REVEAL for property-level analysis and SpendView for consumer spend. Weekly Patterns+ gives POI-level visit counts for the US and Canada, Monday to Sunday, delivered on Wednesdays, with history from January 2018; Neighborhood Patterns+ works at census block group level. SpendView is built from 120M+ cards and covers the US. Data is delivered by FTP, AWS S3 and Google Cloud. Buyers include hedge funds covering 2,000+ tickers, REITs, corporates and the public sector.
Like Unacast, Advan sells data that technical teams load into their own tools, but it adds card spend and maps visits to stock tickers, which suits investment research. Advan's own blog cites T+1 delivery and API access. Its datasets center on the US and Canada. Huq covers 35 markets, with a self-serve platform for commercial users and Parquet or CSV feeds into Amazon S3 or Google Cloud Storage for technical teams.
Pros
- Direct successor to SafeGraph Patterns through Weekly Patterns+ and Neighborhood Patterns+
- Foot traffic and card spend from one vendor, with SpendView built from 120M+ cards
- Data mapped to 2,000+ stock tickers for investment research
- Weekly Patterns+ history back to January 2018
Cons
- Built mainly for analyst and quant teams rather than dashboard-first business users
- Weekly Patterns+ covers the US and Canada only, and SpendView the US only
- Pricing isn't published; a demo or call is required
4. pass_by: best for data teams benchmarking US retail brands with daily visit feeds in their warehouse
pass_by (Passby Technologies Ltd) is a London-based retail market intelligence company. Its Almanac platform brings brand, market, spend and trip insights into one view, AI Retail Agents put the same data into AI assistants, and Feeds & API delivers the signals into customers' own tools. Its US visit data covers about 93% of branded retail points of interest: 1.31M POIs across 7,080 brands, 292 retail categories and 687 stock tickers. Visit counts are aggregated daily at POI level, with history from January 2019 and 90-day visit forecasts updated monthly. Delivery options include S3, SFTP, Snowflake, BigQuery, Google Cloud Storage, Azure, Databricks and a REST API. pass_by self-reports correlation to actual traffic of 86% daily, 80% weekly and 88% monthly.
Like Unacast, pass_by sells feeds and an API, but its US data is curated around branded retail, with visits mapped to brands, categories and tickers. It doesn't sell identity linkages or raw mobility data. Huq suits teams that want weekly foot traffic, catchment and cross-visitation in a platform as well as feeds, across 35 markets, with 1,000+ locations manually validated in each market twice a year.
Pros
- Broad US branded retail coverage: about 93% of branded retail POIs across 7,080 brands
- Visits mapped to brands, retail categories and tickers, which suits brand-level benchmarking
- Daily POI-level visit counts with history from 2019 and 90-day forecasts
- Wide choice of delivery, from warehouse shares and cloud storage to a REST API
Cons
- US visit data centers on branded retail, so independent stores and non-retail locations may be thinner
- Accuracy figures are self-reported
- Pricing is on request (monthly or yearly license)
5. Veraset: best for data science teams replacing raw mobility feeds
Veraset is a raw mobility data provider for data science and engineering teams. Its products are Movement, a global dataset of GPS pings; Visits, device visits to 4M+ POIs with dwell; Home & Work, inferred residence and workplace locations; Trips, origin-destination journeys covering 100M+ trips a month; and MATCHLINK, which links devices to emails, IP addresses and households. Veraset cites about 300M devices and 10 billion daily pings across 200+ countries. Data is pushed as flat files to S3 or GCP or accessed through APIs, and in March 2026 it launched Orchestrator, a self-serve platform for location workflows. Buyers span adtech, finance, real estate, retail, urban planning, government and research.
Veraset and Unacast both sell raw, device-level data, so Veraset is the like-for-like swap for data science teams that want movement, visits and trips at global scale. Like Unacast, it sells identity linkage, through MATCHLINK, so buyers should ask the same consent questions. Huq is a different model: aggregated weekly foot traffic, catchment and visitor behavior across 35 markets, ready to analyze in a platform or load as Parquet or CSV files.
Pros
- Large-scale raw data: about 300M devices and 10 billion daily pings (vendor figures)
- Several dataset types, including Trips and Home & Work, not just visits
- Flat files to S3 or GCP, APIs, and the Orchestrator self-serve platform
Cons
- Raw data needs an in-house data team to turn it into site answers
- Scale figures are vendor claims, and refresh cadence per dataset isn't published
6. Echo Analytics: best for data teams who need footfall, catchment and POI data in Europe and the US
Echo Analytics is a geospatial data provider that sells location datasets rather than a dashboard. Its core products are Places, POI data on 80M+ locations worldwide, and Shapes, building footprints for commercial locations with 95%+ polygon coverage. Its insight datasets cover Footfall, Catchment Area, Cross-visitation, GeoPersona and Travel Patterns, and it also offers a Location SDK and geolocation APIs. Coverage varies by product: its Datarade listings span Europe and the US, from 5 to 33 countries depending on the dataset. Echo sells to retail, adtech and martech, FMCG, consulting and market research teams. It offers free data samples and public documentation, and works with partners such as CARTO and Esri for teams that want to map the data.
Echo is an Unacast alternative for data teams that want aggregated footfall, catchment and cross-visitation in Europe as well as the US, plus POIs and building shapes from the same vendor. Like Unacast, it is data-first, so analysis happens in your own tools or a partner's. Huq offers similar signals across 35 markets, with a platform for commercial users and Parquet or CSV feeds into Amazon S3 or Google Cloud Storage.
Pros
- POI data, building shapes and footfall from one vendor
- Catchment Area and Cross-visitation datasets as well as visit counts
- Free data samples and public documentation
- Esri says the data integrates with its users' GIS workflows
Cons
- No dashboard of its own, so you'll need in-house tools or a partner
- Country coverage varies by dataset
- Update cadence isn't published
7. Azira: best for marketers who use location data for audiences and campaign measurement
Azira, formerly Near, is a location intelligence and marketing platform headquartered in Pasadena, California. It sells to marketers, data leaders and operations teams in automotive, hospitality, media, real estate, restaurants, retail and travel and tourism. Azira Insights provides analytics, reports and custom data feeds; Audience builds segments from real-world visitation, purchase behavior and intent; Campaigns runs media across desktop, mobile, CTV, audio and DOOH; and Measurement tracks incremental foot traffic and conversions. Azira One, launched in September 2026, answers location questions in plain language. Azira cites 13 trillion mobility signals, 35.6 billion consumer transactions and 43 million POIs, with solutions supported in 44 countries.
Where Unacast sells data for others to build on, Azira packages location data into finished marketing workflows, from audiences to measurement, and also offers custom data feeds. Its 44-country footprint suits multinational marketers, and destination marketing organizations are a visible customer group. G2 reviewers rate it 4.6/5 from 20 reviews. Huq focuses on location decisions for retail chains, retail property and investors, with weekly footfall, catchment and cross-visitation across 35 markets.
Pros
- Combines visit insights with audience building, media activation and campaign measurement
- Solutions supported in 44 countries
- Azira One answers location questions in plain language
- Rated 4.6/5 on G2 from 20 reviews
Cons
- Built around marketing and campaign measurement as much as site analysis, so check its fit for real estate or site selection work
- Data refresh and granularity aren't stated publicly
How to choose an Unacast alternative
Will you build or buy the analysis?
If you have data engineers, a feed or API may be enough. If not, choose a vendor with a dashboard.
What questions should you ask about data sourcing?
AdExchanger's advice after the FTC's 2025 orders: ask any vendor how it verifies consent and handles sensitive locations.
Do you need foot traffic outside the US?
Unacast's foot traffic datasets cover the US. Huq covers 35 markets and manually validates 1,000+ locations in each, twice a year.
How is accuracy shown?
Ask for validation against counters or reported sales, then test on a site where you know the numbers.
Frequently asked questions
What is Unacast?
Unacast is a location data company headquartered in Ashburn, Virginia, founded in Norway in 2015. It sells mobility data, US foot traffic datasets, data linkages and analytics APIs such as Area Visitors and Trade Areas, mainly to data, adtech and product teams. It merged with Gravy Analytics in late 2023.
Who are Unacast's competitors?
Unacast competitors for foot traffic and mobility data include Placer.ai, Advan Research, pass_by, Veraset, Echo Analytics, Azira and Huq. CB Insights lists Huq Industries first among Unacast competitors. G2's alternatives list focuses on general BI and mapping tools rather than location data providers.
What are the best Unacast alternatives?
Huq suits retail chains, retail property and investors who want analysis built in: footfall by week, month and year, residents vs visitors, catchment, drive time, frequency, dwell, dayparts, cross-visitation, tourism, density, transport mode, POIs, brands, industries, plus demographics and spend in selected markets, in a platform plus Parquet/CSV feeds into S3 or GCS rather than an API. Placer.ai suits US dashboards, Advan hedge funds, and Veraset and Echo data teams.
Is Gravy Analytics part of Unacast?
Yes. Gravy Analytics and Unacast announced a merger on November 29, 2023, and Unacast's About page dates it to December 2023. Unacast, Inc. is the parent company, and gravyanalytics.com now redirects to unacast.com.
What was the FTC order against Gravy Analytics?
In December 2024 the FTC alleged that Gravy Analytics and Venntel sold sensitive location data without verified consent. On January 14, 2025 it finalized an order, approved 5-0, banning the sale or use of sensitive location data with narrow exceptions. It also requires deleting historic location data unless it is deidentified or consented.
Where does Unacast get its data?
Unacast says it licenses pseudonymous location signals from aggregators representing SDKs in tens of thousands of mobile apps. Its visitation model uses machine learning to combine these signals with neighborhood and historical foot traffic, and its US datasets release weekly with a 4-day lag.
Questions? Talk to us
Book a demoSources
- Huq
- Huq Walmart validation study
- Unacast
- Unacast: About
- Unacast foot traffic data
- Unacast visitation datasets
- G2: Unacast alternatives
- CB Insights: Unacast competitors
- FTC: complaint against Gravy Analytics and Venntel
- FTC: final order against Gravy Analytics and Venntel
- The Register: Gravy Analytics security incident
- Wikipedia: Gravy Analytics
- AdExchanger: FTC location data settlements
- Placer.ai
- Advan Research
- pass_by
- Veraset
- Echo Analytics
- Azira
- Huq platform
- Placer.ai FAQ
- Placer.ai pricing
- Placer.ai data delivery methods
- SiliconANGLE: Placer.ai funding and revenue (Aug 2024)
- TechCrunch: Placer.ai raises $75M (Aug 2024)
- Advan Research: About
- Advan data dictionaries
- Advan: acquisition of SafeGraph Patterns
- Business Wire: Advan acquires RetailStat REI (Nov 2024)
- Datarade: pass_by US visit data
- Datarade: Echo Analytics foot traffic data
- G2: Azira
- PPC Land: Azira One launch
- Advan: What Placer.ai doesn't cover
- Unacast global data (Datarade)
About Huq
Huq is a location intelligence company. We turn anonymised mobile location data into footfall, catchment and visitor insight for any place, so retailers, property owners and local authorities can make decisions on evidence.
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