FOR SOLO BUSINESSES
Know where your customers are. Then go get them.
Starting out on your own? Smappen shows you who lives around you, where the demand is, and where your competitors already are. Draw your catchment area in minutes, read the market inside it, and decide where to set up or where to prospect. No complicated software, no market-research budget.
Why it matters
When it's just you, every hour on the road and every ad counts.
Drive too far and the travel eats your margin. Stay too close and you run out of customers. Spread your flyers and ads everywhere and most of the budget lands where nobody’s buying. Most independents decide with Google Maps, a handful of searches, and a gut feel. A market study costs more than it would save you. Smappen is the third option: you draw your area, you read the numbers, you decide where your time and money go.
Built for someone running the business, not analyzing it.
See if the market's really there.
Draw your area the way your business works — radius, drive time, towns, or zip or postal codes — and see how many people live inside. On a paid plan, see who they are (age, households, income) and which competitors are already there. The data is cross-checked and updated regularly, so the numbers hold up.
Free to start. Fair when you need more.
Map up to 10 areas for free, with no credit card and no time limit. Need more? It's a monthly subscription: no setup fee, no annual lock-in, and you can pause it when you don't need it. You're not paying for software built for a 200-location chain.
Your first map in minutes.
Nothing to install, no mapping skills needed. Drop your address, pick a radius or a drive time, and your area appears with its numbers. You'll learn more about your market over one coffee than in a week of searching online.
Grows with your business.
Drop your map into a business plan or a loan application. Widen your service area when your calendar fills up. Add a new area, or a second spot, the day you're ready. It's the same account from your first client to your hundredth, with no switching tools once things take off.
HOW IT WORKS FOR YOU
How solo businesses use Smappen.
Whatever you sell, the job is the same: know your area before you put time or money into it.
Decide how far you'll go.
Working from home or on the road? Draw your area by drive time, then compare a 15-minute and a 30-minute drive: how many potential customers does each one add? You’ll know where the trip is worth it, and where the travel eats your margin.
Put your flyers and ads where people are.
The population heatmap shows where people are concentrated, so you know where to drop flyers first. Export the zip or postal codes inside your area and paste them into Google Ads or Meta. Selling to other businesses? Pull a list of the local ones — names, addresses, phone numbers — and start calling.
Compare locations before you sign a lease.
Opening a shop or a studio? Draw an area around each address you’re considering — by drive time, walk time, or radius — and compare them side by side: how many people live there, who they are, and who’s already competing for them. You pick where the market actually is, not where the rent looked good.
Testimonials
Your questions, answered
Local market research means measuring two things over one specific area: how much demand is there, and how much competition is already serving it. In Smappen, you outline the area you’re considering, then read the number of residents inside it, their profiles (age, households, income), and the businesses already operating there. You can put several locations side by side and decide on numbers instead of instinct — no research firm, no GIS software.
Start from where you work — your home or your workshop — and draw an area by drive time, for example 15 or 30 minutes. Smappen counts the people living inside each one, so you can see how many potential customers each extra stretch of driving adds, and set your limit on numbers instead of habit.
Yes. The population heatmap shows where people are concentrated inside your area, so you know which neighborhoods to cover first. On a paid plan, export the zip or postal codes inside your area to target your Google Ads or Meta campaigns, or pull a list of local businesses — names, addresses, phone numbers — if you sell to other companies.
Yes. Smappen’s free plan lets you draw up to 10 areas and see how many people live in each one, with no credit card and no time limit — enough to test a location or compare a few. Deeper demographic profiles, competitor search, and exports are on the paid plans. Unlike GIS software, there’s nothing to install and no setup fee either way.
To find the population around a location, you draw a zone — by radius in miles or kilometers, or by drive time — and add up the residents inside it. Smappen does this automatically: drop the address, choose the distance or the travel time, and the population appears live as you draw. Demographic profiles (age, households, income) are on the paid plans.
Smappen is a self-serve subscription — monthly or annual, no setup fee, no mandatory consulting, no annual lock-in. The free plan stays free. → Take a look at our pricing.
