Crowd Connected

Crowd Connected is a location platform for indoor and outdoor positioning, event attendance tracking, and footfall analytics. It is best suited to event organizers, venues, and app teams that need location functions rather than a general-purpose mapping tool. Its main appeal is a free indoor-positioning entry point and a broad location toolkit; event tracking brings extra charges and tag-return obligations.

Overview

Crowd Connected combines blue-dot navigation, indoor and outdoor positioning, footfall analytics, and asset and wearable tracking. Battery-powered Bluetooth beacons detect wearable tags, capturing session attendance, arrival time, dwell time, and movement without badge scans. That avoids a scanning step for attendees, but organizers need to account for shipping and charges for tags that are not returned.

Crowd Connected Ltd is a UK company founded in 2013 and headquartered in Guildford, Surrey. Its security document says internet transmissions use TLS and data stored in S3, EC2, and Dynamo is encrypted at rest.

Key features

Indoor positioning combines battery-powered beacons with machine learning that self-calibrates, without manual calibration or fingerprinting. This is useful for teams seeking to avoid maintaining a calibration process. Near-real-time heatmaps, map regions, and device-count and dwell-time charts help venues and event teams examine where devices gather and how long they remain.

MapsPeople and Mazemap are integrated, and IMDF maps from Mappedin, Point Maps, and Visioglobe can be imported. A single location SDK covers indoor and outdoor positioning in mobile apps, making it relevant to app teams that need both environments. Privacy controls let apps restrict background collection to particular places and times. PNG and JPEG uploads and API access are also supported.

Attendee Tracking records session and movement data without badge scans, but its US display price is $10 per delegate plus a $6,000 activation charge. License and hardware rental are included; shipping and non-returned tags are not. That makes the tracking service a more involved event purchase than the per-delegate figure alone suggests.

Pricing

The permanent indoor-positioning plans vary by venue area, support, and billing term. Free costs nothing, billed Free forever, and covers one floorplan with unlimited area and unlimited MAUs, but only limited email support. It is a useful starting point for a small evaluation, not a multi-floorplan deployment.

Starter is $5,510,002 a month on a monthly contract for below 3,000 m2, with unlimited floorplans and MAUs but limited email support. Basic is $2,000 a year on an annual contract for 3,000 to 40,000 m2, with full support. Standard is $0.05 a year on an annual contract for 40,000 to 300,000 m2, also with unlimited floorplans and MAUs and full support. Enterprise has custom pricing for over 300,000 m2 and adds managed service. The published prices make the Basic and Standard figures notably different in scale, so buyers should confirm the appropriate area tier and quote before committing.

Event-app indoor-positioning packages are one-time fees that include a mobile SDK licence and beacon rental: Small costs $8,500, paid once for up to 20,000m2, Medium costs $15,500, paid once for up to 60,000m2, and Large costs $25,000, paid once for up to 100,000m2. Extra Large, for over 100,000 m2, has custom pricing.

Platforms

Crowd Connected supports Android, iOS, web, and API. That mix suits both mobile-app deployments and teams working through a browser or API.

Who it's for

The product is a strong fit for event organizers tracking attendance and movement, venues seeking indoor navigation and footfall patterns, and app teams integrating indoor and outdoor location through one SDK. The company also lists healthcare and education among its sectors. Teams looking only for general geospatial mapping or a low-cost event check-in tool may find its positioning focus and event activation and tag costs poorly matched.

Pros and cons

• Pros: Beacon-based indoor positioning self-calibrates, reducing reliance on manual calibration or fingerprinting.
• Pros: The location SDK spans indoor and outdoor positioning, while heatmaps and dwell-time charts support venue and event analysis.
• Pros: The Free plan has unlimited MAUs and area, giving teams a no-cost way to begin with one floorplan.
• Cons: Free and Starter provide only limited email support; full support starts with Basic and Standard, while Enterprise adds managed service.
• Cons: Attendee Tracking adds a $6,000 activation charge to its $10 per delegate US price, and shipping and unreturned tags cost extra.
• Cons: Plan pricing spans different terms and area tiers, and the Starter and Standard published amounts make direct budgeting difficult without confirming the quote.

Alternatives

Browse Location Intelligence Software for a wider category comparison. LocationAPI is a freemium option for teams seeking API-based location services, with a free Developer plan limited by requests and non-commercial use. Mapbox Studio is a free freemium choice for mapping work, though related API and custom tileset usage may be billed separately.

Sitewise Analytics is worth considering for trade-area analysis, with 70 curated geospatial variables and eight preset trade-area options on its free Market Grid plan. Azure Maps offers a free tier with transaction allowances across data, geolocation, search, spatial calculations, and imagery. Foursquare is another freemium API and web option, with free spatial desktop and studio plans.

Locus suits users who primarily want map browsing and measuring, with a free map-access plan and a one-time location report option. Mapline is an alternative freemium mapping service. Placer.ai offers a free, limited display of its platform for users who want to explore before considering a customized subscription.

Verdict

Choose Crowd Connected if indoor positioning, event movement tracking, and venue analytics need to work together, especially when a self-calibrating beacon setup and an app SDK are valuable. Its free plan makes initial positioning exploration accessible, but event tracking's activation charge and tag costs are substantial considerations. Look elsewhere if the project is ordinary mapping or needs straightforward, low-cost attendance tracking.