Sperling's BestPlaces
Sperling's BestPlaces, operated by Fast Forward Inc., is a private Portland-based data company that publishes cost-of-living, demographic, and lifestyle comparison intelligence for over 80,000 U.S. cities, serving individual relocators, retirees, real estate professionals, and enterprise data licensees through a freemium web platform with AI-powered personalization.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded1991
- HeadquartersPortland, United States
- Headcount1–10
- GTM typeB2B and B2C
- OfferingSoftware
What Sperling's BestPlaces does
Sperling's BestPlaces, operated by Fast Forward Inc., is a private Portland, Oregon-based data company founded by Bert Sperling in 1991 that publishes city- and place-level demographic, economic, and lifestyle intelligence for over 80,000 U.S. locations via the bestplaces.net web platform. Its core product surface centers on the Cost of Living Calculator (uniquely incorporating tax rates), a head-to-head Compare Cities engine covering 100+ categories, the AI-powered LANA quiz for personalized "best place" recommendations, the 'Where Should I Move?' real-time weighted scoring tool, an interactive SuperMap with 100,000+ data layers, and a suite of educational geography games. The platform combines proprietary BestPlaces data with U.S. Census, federal research, and national survey inputs, refreshed and republished continuously.
The company monetizes through a freemium consumer subscription model ($18.99/month or $149.99/year Premium), a $499.99/year Enterprise tier that permits marketing, advertising, and resale use of BestPlaces data, usage-based city data downloads, and sponsored studies and branded content produced for partners such as AARP, Money Magazine, Farmers Insurance, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, RoC Skincare, and Navy Federal Credit Union. Enterprise data licensing is sold into major U.S. real estate, financial services, and technology platforms, including Zillow, Realtor.com, Rocket Mortgage, Coldwell Banker, Anywhere (Realogy), USAA, Intel, and Microsoft.
Customer segments span individual relocators and retirees, real estate professionals, corporate HR/relocation departments, and enterprise data/content partners. The company maintains a small team (1–10 employees), is founder-owned with no disclosed institutional capital, and operates without any documented M&A, funding, or leadership transitions.
Sperling's BestPlaces firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Sperling's BestPlaces
- Legal name
- Fast Forward Inc.
- Website
- https://bestplaces.net
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 1991
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1–10 employees
- Short description
- Sperling's BestPlaces, operated by Fast Forward Inc., is a private Portland-based data company that publishes cost-of-living, demographic, and lifestyle comparison intelligence for over 80,000 U.S. cities, serving individual relocators, retirees, real estate professionals, and enterprise data licensees through a freemium web platform with AI-powered personalization.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Sperling's BestPlaces industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Location Intelligence
- NAICS
- Web Search Portals, Libraries, Archives, and Other Information Services (519), Directory and Mailing List Publishers (51314)
- SIC
- Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Geocoding, Search & Place Data Platforms (BPAMANAC)
- akta.pro secondary industry
- POI, Local Listings & Business Directory Platforms (BPAMANAD)
Keywords
Where Sperling's BestPlaces is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Portland
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Markets served
Sperling's BestPlaces business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B and B2C
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure
Revenue model
- Premium Subscriptions: Freemium model with tiered subscription access. Free tier provides basic cost of living calculator and limited city comparisons. Premium tiers unlock advanced features including tax analysis, childcare costs, insurance data, and unlimited data downloads.
- Enterprise Licensing: Business-tier subscription for enterprise use cases including marketing, advertising, resale applications. Provides full data access and customer service support for business integration.
- Data Downloads: Premium members receive 10 free city profile downloads per month. Additional downloads available for purchase ($5.99 for 10 downloads, $10.99 for 20 downloads).
- Sponsored Content & Partnerships: Sponsored studies and branded content partnerships with major brands (e.g., RoC Skincare wrinkle ranking, Takeda Pharmaceuticals hypertension study, Farmers Insurance secure places study, TGI Fridays failure to lunch study).
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Monthly | Premium Monthly - Full access to all tools with monthly billing |
| Subscription | Annual | Premium Yearly - Best value annual subscription at 35% off |
| Subscription | Annual | Enterprise Yearly - Business use case tier for marketing and data resale |
| Usage-based | Pay-as-you-go | Additional Data Downloads - Pay-per-use for additional city profiles |
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels3 records
Marketing channels8 records
Sperling's BestPlaces product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Sperling's BestPlaces is a location intelligence platform that aggregates demographic, economic, climate, crime, housing, and quality-of-life data on U.S. cities and metro areas. It sells consumer subscriptions, individual tool access, and enterprise data licensing to real estate professionals, HR/relocation teams, and media partners. Its flagship outputs include the Cost of Living Calculator, side-by-side city comparison, the LANA AI BestPlaces Quiz, and proprietary rankings such as Best Places to Live.
Product overview
Sperling's BestPlaces operates a unified data platform centered on BestPlaces.net, offering city-level demographic and lifestyle comparison tools for over 80,000 U.S. places. The core offering consists of the Cost of Living Calculator (the only major service including tax rates in its calculations), the Compare Cities tool for head-to-head multi-category analysis, the AI-powered BestPlaces Quiz (LANA — a neural network-based recommendation system using 30-year-researched weighted hyper-parameters), the real-time weighted-scoring 'Where Should I Move?' tool, the interactive BestPlaces SuperMap, and a Games Suite of educational geography and data-comparison games. The platform also publishes city rankings and editorial studies. Three subscription tiers (Premium Monthly at $18.99/mo, Premium Yearly at $149.99/yr, and Enterprise at $499.99/yr) gate advanced features including city data downloads, unrestricted map access, personalized reports, and the enhanced LANA quiz.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- LANA: Location-based Artificial Neural Architecture - AI-powered quiz that provides personalized recommendations for the five best places to live in the United States based on user preferences and 30-year-researched weighted hyper-parameters.
Products and services
- BestPlaces.net City Data Platform
Companies that use Sperling's BestPlaces
Customer profileNamed customers10 records
Segments5 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
Sperling's BestPlaces technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
AI capability5 records
Feature4 records
Sperling's BestPlaces partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
20 partnerships are on record, tiered core, major and minor.
- AARPcorePartnership providing retirement and cost of living data to AARP members. BestPlaces data used for AARP relocation and retirement planning resources.
- ForbescoreMedia partnership featuring BestPlaces data in Forbes content. Trusted brand association for city rankings and relocation advice.
- The New York TimescoreMedia partnership including joint studies (e.g., Where to Live to Avoid a Natural Disaster). Trusted third-party validation of data quality.
- USA TodaymajorMedia partnership featuring BestPlaces data in USA Today city rankings and lifestyle content.
- NewsweekmajorMedia partnership for city data and rankings content published in Newsweek magazine and digital platforms.
- CNBCmajorTelevision and digital media partnership for economic and lifestyle data coverage.
- CNNmajorMedia partnership for city and demographic data used in CNN news and lifestyle coverage.
- Money MagazinecoreAnnual partnership for 'Best Places to Live' rankings published in Money Magazine. Bert Sperling provides expert review of rankings.
- ZillowcoreReal estate data partnership providing cost of living and demographic data for Zillow's relocation tools and city profiles.
- Rocket MortgagecoreReal estate and mortgage data partnership for Rocket Mortgage's relocation and home buying resources.
- Realtor.comcoreReal estate platform partnership providing city data and cost comparisons for home buyers and relocators.
- Coldwell BankermajorReal estate brokerage using BestPlaces data to support agent client presentations and relocation services.
- IntelminorEnterprise partnership using BestPlaces demographic and location data for internal and external applications.
- USAAmajorFinancial services partnership providing relocation data for USAA members (military-affiliated financial services).
- Navy Federal Credit UnionmajorMilitary-focused financial services partnership for 'Best Cities After Service' rankings and member relocation resources.
- MicrosoftminorEnterprise partnership for BestPlaces data applications within Microsoft ecosystem or products.
- McDonald'sminorBrand partnership for location-based content and city studies.
- American ExpressminorBrand partnership and promotional relationship.
- Motel 6minorContent partnership for pet-friendly road trip destinations article and promotional content.
- YahoominorMedia partnership for BestPlaces data featured in Yahoo News and Lifestyle content.
Scale indicators8 records
Recent moves5 records
Expansion highlights5 records
Sperling's BestPlaces competitors and assessment
Company assessmentBroad incumbents
- Zillow: Zillow is both a customer (licensed data partner) and a broader incumbent in U.S. real estate search and relocation. Its city and neighborhood pages overlap with BestPlaces' content and pose a competitive risk if it builds equivalent native data products.
- Realtor.com: Realtor.com is a BestPlaces enterprise data partner and a broad real estate portal with its own city-data and affordability content. It represents both a distribution channel and a potential competitor in relocation analytics.
- U.S. News & World Report (Best Places to Live): U.S. News publishes the well-known 'Best Places to Live' rankings using its own methodology across U.S. metros. It competes directly with BestPlaces' Money Magazine and branded rankings for editorial mind-share in relocation decisions.
Direct peers
- Numbeo: Numbeo is a crowd-sourced cost-of-living and quality-of-life database covering thousands of cities globally. It competes directly with BestPlaces' cost-of-living calculator and city comparison engine, with the key difference of international coverage.
- City-Data: City-Data aggregates U.S. city-level demographic, housing, crime, cost-of-living and climate data with user-driven forums. It serves the same relocation-research audience with a similar (largely free) data breadth.
- NeighborhoodScout: NeighborhoodScout provides hyper-local U.S. data on crime, demographics, real estate trends and 'find your best place' search tools. It targets the same individual relocators and real estate professionals as BestPlaces.
- AreaVibes: AreaVibes publishes a 'Livability Score' for U.S. cities and neighborhoods across categories like amenities, cost of living, crime, schools and weather. It directly competes with BestPlaces' Compare Cities and cost-of-living tools.
- Niche: Niche compiles K-12 school, college and city livability data for U.S. places with side-by-side comparisons and rankings. It targets the same individual relocators and families as BestPlaces and is the closest functional competitor in school-plus-city data.
- Walk Score: Walk Score quantifies walkability, transit and bike scores for U.S. addresses and is widely embedded in real estate listings. It overlaps with BestPlaces' livability, commute and neighborhood comparison capabilities.
Emerging players
- GreatSchools: GreatSchools publishes K-12 school quality data that complements BestPlaces' schools comparison tool and is often consulted by the same relocator audience. Overlap is narrower (school-focused) but the target persona is identical.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat4 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Sperling's BestPlaces social profiles
Digital presenceSperling's BestPlaces financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Sperling's BestPlaces leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles1 record
Sperling's BestPlaces funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Sperling's BestPlaces M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Sperling's BestPlaces
What does Sperling's BestPlaces do?
Sperling's BestPlaces is a location intelligence platform that aggregates demographic, economic, climate, crime, housing, and quality-of-life data on U.S. cities and metro areas. It sells consumer subscriptions, individual tool access, and enterprise data licensing to real estate professionals, HR/relocation teams, and media partners. Its flagship outputs include the Cost of Living Calculator, side-by-side city comparison, the LANA AI BestPlaces Quiz, and proprietary rankings such as Best Places to Live.
Is Sperling's BestPlaces a public or private company?
Sperling's BestPlaces is a private company. It is classified as founder individual operated bootstrapped and is currently operating.
When was Sperling's BestPlaces founded?
Sperling's BestPlaces was founded in 1991. It employs 1 to 10 people.
Where is Sperling's BestPlaces based?
Sperling's BestPlaces is headquartered in Portland, United States, in the North America region.
How does Sperling's BestPlaces make money?
Four revenue lines are on record. Premium Subscriptions are the primary driver. The others are enterprise Licensing, data Downloads and sponsored Content & Partnerships.
Who are Sperling's BestPlaces's main competitors?
Broad incumbents on record are Zillow, Realtor.com and U.S. News & World Report (Best Places to Live). Direct peers are Numbeo, City-Data, NeighborhoodScout, AreaVibes, Niche and Walk Score. GreatSchools is listed as an emerging player.
Does Sperling's BestPlaces have an API?
No public API is recorded for Sperling's BestPlaces.
What industry is Sperling's BestPlaces in?
Sperling's BestPlaces's product category is Location Intelligence. Its primary akta.pro industry code is BPAMANAC, Geocoding, Search & Place Data Platforms, with a secondary code of BPAMANAD, POI, Local Listings & Business Directory Platforms. Its NAICS code is 519 and its SIC code is 7370.