What is store locator software?
Store locator software is a tool you embed on your website that lets a visitor find your physical locations, stockists or dealers by entering a postcode, city or address. It geocodes what they typed, sorts your locations by distance from that point, and shows the results on a map and in a list with the details they need to get there.
It is sometimes called a store locator widget, a store locator app, a dealer locator or a stockist finder. Those are the same category of tool. What varies between them is where the location data lives, who pays for the map, how much of the appearance you control, and what a visitor can do once they have found the place they wanted.
What it does
Six capabilities, which is roughly how every tool in this category is put together.
- 1.Appearance
- 2.Search and geolocation
- 3.Filters and categories
- 4.Result cards and detail
- 5.The map itself
The sixth, location data and sync, is the one you cannot see in a screenshot, and it is usually the part that decides how much work the tool is to live with.
Location data and sync
Every locator starts from a list of places. Most accept a CSV upload; better ones read a live Google Sheet or an API so the list is edited where your team already works rather than re-uploaded each time. The thing to check is what happens on the second import: whether rows are matched to existing locations or duplicated.
Search and geolocation
A visitor types a postcode, a city or an address, or lets the browser share their position. The software geocodes that into coordinates, then sorts your locations by distance from it. Radius limits, distance units and whether results are restricted to a country are the usual controls.
The map itself
Maps come from a provider, normally Google Maps or Mapbox, and are billed per load. Some locators include the map in their price and mark the usage up; others ask you to bring your own provider key so you are billed directly at cost. This is the single largest difference in what a locator costs to run at volume, and it is rarely on the pricing page.
Filters and categories
Stockists carry different ranges, dealers hold different accreditations, clinics offer different services. Filters let a visitor narrow to the locations that can actually help them, which matters more the longer your list is.
Result cards and detail
What each result shows: address, phone, opening hours, an open-or-closed badge computed in the location's own timezone, photos, and the actions a visitor takes next. Directions, call and website are the common three; booking or ordering links are what turn a locator into a conversion surface.
Appearance
A locator sits inside your own page, so it either looks like part of the site or like something bolted onto it. Colours, type, spacing, corners and marker style are the usual controls. Map styling is the one most often missing, and it is the largest coloured area on the page.
Who needs one
Retailers with more than one shop, brands sold through stockists they do not own (a beverage or food brand like Coca-Cola or KIND stocked in stores such as Whole Foods or HEB), manufacturers with dealer or installer networks (a tyre brand like Firestone or Bridgestone authorising installers), clinics and franchises with appointment booking (a chain like Domino's keeping thousands of independently run locations consistent), and service businesses that cover an area rather than trade from an address. The last of those is worth calling out: a plumber or a mobile technician has no storefront, so the useful answer is a coverage radius rather than a pin, and not every tool draws one.
If your locations are retailers that carry your products, start with the practical guide to a stockist locator. It covers the difference between physical stockists and online sellers, including what to do when an online row has no street address.
How to choose between them
Five questions that separate the options faster than a feature table does.
How many locations do you have, and how often do they change?
A dozen fixed shops and four thousand rotating stockists are different problems. Under a hundred, almost anything works and you should choose on appearance. Over a few hundred, ask about clustering, pagination and how the list is kept up to date.
Who pays for the map?
If the price includes maps, find out what happens when you exceed the included loads. If you bring your own key, you get provider pricing directly and a free tier that covers most small sites, at the cost of creating an account with Google or Mapbox once.
What does a visitor do after they find a location?
Directions is the default, but the valuable action is often booking, ordering or calling. If the locator cannot carry a per-location link, that action has to live somewhere else and the locator stops being the end of the journey.
How much of it can you change without a developer?
Most tools offer a colour and a logo. Fewer let you change layout, marker style, which fields appear on a card, or the map's own palette. If your brand is distinctive, this is the difference between a locator that fits and one that is visibly a plugin.
What happens to the page's speed?
A locator is JavaScript that loads on your page. Ask for the bundle size. Anything that also loads a heavy map library before the visitor interacts is paying for something most visitors never scroll to.
How much it costs
Tools in this category generally run between $15 and $50 a month for a small site, with higher tiers for location count, team seats or API access. The number on the pricing page is rarely the whole cost, because map loads are billed separately by Google or Mapbox unless the tool includes them, and a tool that includes them has priced that risk in. Handled Locator starts at $19 a month for 200 locations and asks you to bring your own map key, so map usage reaches you at provider cost rather than through us.
Common questions
What is store locator software?
Software that adds a searchable map of physical locations to a website. A visitor types a postcode, city or address; the software converts it to coordinates, sorts the locations by distance, and shows them as a list of result cards next to a map, each with the address, hours, phone and directions.
What is the difference between a store locator and a map embed?
A map embed shows pins. A store locator answers a visitor's question: it searches by typed location, filters by what each place offers, computes open-or-closed in each location's timezone, and gives every result a card with contact details and directions. The pins are the smallest part of it.
How does a store locator work?
Three steps. The business's locations are imported and geocoded once, so each address becomes coordinates. When a visitor searches, their input is geocoded the same way and every location is ranked by distance from that point. The nearest results render as cards and map markers, and interactions like directions hand off to the visitor's own maps app.
What does store locator software cost?
Typically $15 to $50 a month for a small site, rising with location counts, team seats and API access. The number on the pricing page is rarely the whole cost: map usage is billed per load by Google or Mapbox, and tools either bundle it into tiers or have you bring your own provider key at cost.
Is a store locator worth it for a small business?
It depends on whether where can I get this is a question your customers ask. A business with one shop is served by a map embed and a Google Business Profile. More than a handful of locations, or products sold through other people's shops, is where a searchable locator starts paying for itself.
What is a dealer locator or stockist locator?
The same category of software pointed at locations the brand does not own. A dealer locator lists authorised sellers and service points with their accreditation visible; a stockist or where-to-buy locator lists the retailers that carry a brand's products, usually with filters for which product lines each one stocks.
Where we fit
Handled Locator is one of the options above. It serves up to 10,000 locations, exposes 85+ settings including custom map styles, and requires your own Google Maps or Mapbox key, which is a real setup step and the reason map usage is not marked up. If you would rather not create a provider account, a tool that includes maps will suit you better and we would rather say so here than after you have signed up.
Adding one to a specific platform: Shopify, WordPress, Squarespace, Webflow or Wix.