Frequently Asked Questions

Everything you need to know about how Locate Business works, what data you'll get, and what it costs. Can't find your answer? Contact us.

How It Works

What does Locate Business actually do?

You upload a spreadsheet with company names. Locate Business visits each company's official website, finds their locations page, extracts every physical address listed there, and delivers the results as a downloadable Excel file. The entire process is automated — no manual research required.

How does the tool find a company's locations?

For each company name, the tool first searches for the company's official website, then navigates to their locations or contact page. It handles JavaScript-rendered content (like interactive store finders), paginated location lists, and location pages that require a zip code search. Addresses are extracted and parsed into structured columns: street, city, state, and zip.

What happens if a company doesn't have a locations page?

If no dedicated locations page is found, the tool falls back to the contact page, which often contains one or more addresses. If no usable address is found anywhere on the site, that company's row will be returned with a blank address and a note indicating no location was found.

Does it work for companies with many locations, like national chains?

Yes. For large chains with hundreds of locations, the tool navigates through all pages of their store finder. For interactive store finders that require a zip code input, it queries the finder systematically to surface all locations across the country, then deduplicates the results.

How long does processing take?

Processing time depends on the number of companies and how complex their websites are. Simple lists of 10–20 companies typically complete in a few minutes. Lists with 100+ companies, or companies that have complex JavaScript-rendered location finders, take longer — typically 10–30 minutes. You'll receive a notification when your results are ready.

What if the company has no website or a broken website?

If a company's website is unreachable, returns an error, or has no locatable address content, that row in your output will be marked as unresolved. We don't fall back to third-party databases — we source exclusively from official company websites to ensure the addresses are current and authoritative.

File Formats

What file format should I upload?

You can upload Excel files (.xlsx or .xls). The file should have at minimum a column with company names. Optionally, you can include a 'Zip Code' column (to find nearby locations for companies with many branches) and a 'Website' column (to skip the website discovery step and go directly to scraping).

What should my column headers be named?

The tool recognizes common variations automatically. For company names: 'Company Name', 'Company', 'Business Name', or 'Name' all work. For zip codes: 'Zip Code', 'Zip', 'Postal Code'. For websites: 'Website', 'URL', 'Domain'. If your columns use different names, you'll have an opportunity to map them during upload.

What format does the output file use?

The output is a downloadable Excel (.xlsx) file. It includes your original input columns plus new columns for each address component: Street Address, City, State, Zip Code, and a Full Address column that combines all components. If a company has multiple locations, each location gets its own row.

Can I upload a file with company names only, no other columns?

Yes. A single column with company names is the minimum input required. The tool will search for each company's website automatically. Adding zip codes improves accuracy for companies with many locations, but it's not required.

Data Accuracy

How accurate are the addresses returned?

Accuracy depends on the quality of each company's website. Since we source directly from official company websites, the addresses reflect what the company publishes for customers — typically the most current information available. For companies with well-maintained location pages, accuracy is very high. For companies with outdated or incomplete websites, the data reflects whatever is currently published.

Are these headquarters addresses or all physical locations?

By default, the tool returns all physical locations listed on the company's website — not just headquarters. If a company lists 50 branch offices, you'll get all 50. If you need headquarters only, you can specify that in the upload options and the tool will return only the primary address.

How current is the data?

Unlike purchased database lists that may be months or years old, Locate Business scrapes company websites in real time when you submit your list. The addresses you receive reflect what the company publishes today — as current as it's possible to get from a public source.

What's the difference between this and buying a business address list?

Purchased lists are compiled at a point in time and updated infrequently — often quarterly or annually at best. They can be 20–30% inaccurate within a year. Locate Business goes to the source — the company's own website — at the moment you run your list. This produces fresher, more authoritative data, especially for multi-location companies whose branches change frequently.

Pricing & Limits

How much does it cost?

The free tier processes up to 10 companies per day — no account or credit card required. The Premium plan is $5/month and allows up to 500 companies per month. For higher volumes, contact us to discuss custom pricing.

Does each location count against my limit, or each company?

Limits are per company, not per location. If you upload 10 company names and one of them has 150 locations, that counts as 1 company against your daily or monthly limit — you get all 150 locations.

Do unused credits roll over?

Free tier limits reset daily. Premium monthly limits do not roll over — unused capacity from one month doesn't carry to the next.

Privacy & Legal

Is it legal to scrape company website location data?

Locate Business collects only publicly published location data — addresses that companies actively make available for customers to find and visit their locations. This is public information, not private data. For business research purposes, collecting publicly available location information is standard and legal practice. We do not bypass login screens, collect data from authenticated areas, or access any non-public information.

Do you store my uploaded files?

Your uploaded files are processed and then deleted. We do not retain your input data beyond the time required to complete processing. Results are available for download for 7 days, after which they are also deleted from our servers.

Do you sell the address data you collect?

No. We do not sell, share, or aggregate the location data we collect on behalf of users. Each user's results are private to that user and deleted after 7 days.

Still have questions?

We're happy to help. Send us a message and we'll respond within one business day.