GroundZones vs Mapize for zoning hotels around an airport

Mapize is built to get a spreadsheet onto a map fast, and it is good at that. It takes CSV, TSV, Excel or a linked Google Sheet, detects the address columns, and plots the rows. Files are parsed in the browser rather than uploaded. Rows it cannot place land in an "Attention tray" with a reason instead of blocking the map, and low-confidence matches are flagged as approximate.

It also goes further than most free map tools on grouping. Territories can be drawn four ways: a radius circle, a freehand lasso, automatic splitting of points into balanced groups, or assignment to ZIP codes, counties or states. There is census demographic data to layer underneath, natural-language editing, share links and embeds, and on Pro and above a Google Sheet connection that refreshes the map daily.

If what you need is to publish a hotel list as a map that stays current and can be embedded in a portal, Mapize does that for $19 to $89 a month, and its free tier lets you try the editor without signing up.

Zoning a hotel association file is a different job from publishing one, and that is where the limits bite.

• Size. The cap that matters is locations per map: 50 on Free, 250 on Lite, 1,000 on Pro and 5,000 on Pro Plus. A 2,000-hotel airport needs the $89 plan, and a large metro roster passes 5,000 and needs a custom plan. Note that the import page separately advertises 50,000 rows per import and says 10,000 rows stay smooth on every plan, so it is worth confirming which number applies to your file during the trial.
• The file does not come back. Mapize documents exports as PNG, PDF, KML and GeoJSON. Those are maps and shapes, not your spreadsheet with a zone column, which is the artefact a partner such as Expedia is expecting from you.
• No distance from the terminal. Its Analysis panel offers drive-time bands, which show what falls within a travel time, and its natural-language tool answers distance questions. Neither is a driving distance and time recorded against every hotel, which is the number distance-based zone bands are built on. Mapize also notes that analysis tools roll out gradually, so what your account shows may differ.
• No airport as an origin. There is no IATA lookup, so the point you measure from is one you place yourself, with the airfield-versus-terminal problem left to you.

The whole roster goes into one project regardless of size. You choose the airport by IATA code from 9,055 airports, and the origin is placed at the terminal rather than the middle of the airfield, so the distance matches the drive a passenger actually takes. Every hotel gets its driving distance and time from that origin.

Zone rules read that distance: bands with a minimum and maximum mileage, plus polygons you draw, ZIP code lists and city lists. You preview the result with conflicts shown before anything is applied, then box-select on the map to fix the edges by hand.

The export is the point. CSV or XLSX comes back with your original headers in your original order and the zone column filled in, and the project stays saved with undo, redo and up to 50 restorable versions so next quarter is a merge rather than a rebuild.

Mapize has a free tier, share links, embeds, a public API on Pro Plus, census demographics and a Google Sheet connection that keeps a map current on its own. GroundZones has none of those, and its accounts are single-user, so it is not the tool for publishing a map to customers or a website.

Its plan names are also worth checking as you go: the pricing page lists Free, Lite, Pro and Pro Plus, while the territories and sales pages describe those features as coming with a "Solo" plan, so confirm what your account includes before committing.