Blue Marble Geographics vs RatedPower (2026): Pricing, Features & Verdict
RatedPower is our pick, scoring 6.7/10 against 6.6/10 for Blue Marble Geographics on our Industrial & Infrastructure Software criteria. Its biggest advantage: higher Scalability score (8/10 vs 5/10). Only Blue Marble Geographics has a free plan.
Last updated: November 2026
Blue Marble Geographics
6.6/10
Blue Marble Geographics makes geospatial software. Its products are Global Mapper for desktop GIS and LiDAR processing, Geographic Calculator for coordinate conversion, and the Avenza Maps offline field app.
RatedPower
6.7/10
Cloud software that automates feasibility, layout, electrical engineering, and energy yield studies for utility-scale solar, storage, and hybrid power plants.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | | |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 6.6/10 | 6.7/10 |
| Integration | 8/10 | 5/10 |
| Security | 5/10 | 7/10 |
| Support | 6/10 | 6/10 |
| Cost | 8/10 | 4/10 |
| Analytics | 7/10 | 8/10 |
| Ease of Use | 6/10 | 8/10 |
| Customization | 7/10 | 7/10 |
| Scalability | 5/10 | 8/10 |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | Yes | No |
| Cheapest paid plan | Contact for pricing | Contact for pricing |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | Contact for pricing | Contact for pricing |
| Features | ||
| GIS and Mapping | ||
| Drone Inspection | Not listed | |
| Engineering Design | Not listed | |
| Engineering Simulation | Not listed | |
| LiDAR Processing | Not listed | |
| Offline Field App | Not listed | |
Who Blue Marble Geographics and RatedPower suit
| Audience | Blue Marble Geographics | RatedPower |
|---|---|---|
| Engineering Firms | 8/10It handles terrain, lidar and breakline extraction, and it supports precise geodetic transformations. | 9/10EPCs and engineering consultancies use it to automate layouts, electrical design, and deliverables. |
| Utilities | 6/10It offers AI extraction of power lines and vegetation, but it has no tools for managing assets. | 7/10It suits utilities that develop their own large solar and BESS assets. |
| Drone Service Providers | 8/10It produces point clouds, orthoimagery and 3D models from drone imagery, and it has lidar QA tools. | Not rated |
| Energy Companies | Not rated | 10/10It is built for solar and storage developers working on utility-scale plants. |
| Enterprise | Not rated | 7/10The Enterprise tier adds SSO, team management, and a dedicated consultant. |
| Field Teams | 7/10Avenza Maps provides offline GPS maps and data collection that sync back to the office. | Not rated |
| Government | 7/10It supports a wide range of formats, and Blue Marble publishes pricing for government purchasing such as Texas DIR. | Not rated |
| Small Business | Not rated | 3/10Quote-only multi-year contracts and a utility-scale focus make it a poor fit for small installers. |
Which One Should You Choose?
Why choose Blue Marble Geographics
- Has a free plan (RatedPower does not)
- Higher Cost score (8/10 vs 4/10)
- Higher Integration score (8/10 vs 5/10)
Why choose RatedPower
- Higher Scalability score (8/10 vs 5/10)
- Higher Security score (7/10 vs 5/10)
Pros & Cons
Blue Marble Geographics
Pros
- Global Mapper reads and writes more than 300 spatial formats, and none of them need an extra license.
- Lidar classification, cleanup and feature extraction come in a desktop tool that costs far less than enterprise GIS suites.
- The GeoCalc geodetic engine includes more than 12,000 definitions and time-dependent transformations, which suits survey-grade work.
- Since the Avenza merger, field data from the Avenza Maps offline app flows back into Global Mapper for analysis.
Cons
- It is not an asset management or maintenance system. There are no work orders, maintenance scheduling or condition monitoring.
- Licensing has changed recently, and third-party listings show conflicting perpetual and subscription prices.
- Global Mapper is a Windows desktop tool, so collaboration across teams is limited compared with cloud GIS platforms.
RatedPower
Pros
- Every plan is a single per-company subscription with unlimited users, projects, and designs, so large teams pay no per-seat costs.
- It takes a project from layout through electrical design, yield, and CAPEX to editable deliverables in a single run.
- A vendor-published Black & Veatch audit found its simplified yield model within +0.24% to +1.08% of PVsyst.
- Layouts round-trip through DWG for CAD editing, and shading data exports to PVsyst.
- It covers standalone BESS and hybrid PV plus storage dispatch, not only PV.
- G2 reviewers rate it about 4.4 out of 5 and most often praise its ease of use and the time it saves.
Cons
- No list prices are published, and contracts are typically multi-year.
- Standard support is email-only, with responses of up to 48 working hours.
- It is not suited to rooftop, commercial, or residential solar design.
- G2 reviewers cite layout issues and missing features as their most common complaints.
- Many users still need PVsyst for the bankable P50/P90 reports lenders request.
Not sold on either?
Air Inspection Automation (AiA)Our product
Plans DJI drone inspection missions for power line towers from LiDAR scans: it finds the towers, places photo stops, checks clearance, and splits the route into battery flights.
Made by the team behind b stack radar. Shown here because it fits this topic. It is not part of our rankings. How we rank tools
Frequently Asked Questions
RatedPower scores higher on our Industrial & Infrastructure Software criteria: 6.7/10 against 6.6/10 for Blue Marble Geographics. The largest gap is in Cost: 8/10 for Blue Marble Geographics and 4/10 for RatedPower.
Blue Marble Geographics has a free plan; RatedPower does not list one.
