New: Ultimaps is now in ChatGPT and Claude →

Ultimaps vs Flourish for maps

Choose Flourish if

you tell stories with data: animated maps, filters, time sliders, 3D globes and 40+ projections, next to the other charts in your story. Flourish is free to publish, with attribution and a public page for each project, and its paid plans come through Canva or a sales contract.

Choose Ultimaps if

you need a map file as well as a web map, a US county or ZIP map ready to fill, or rows that match by name without exact IDs, and you want a map from a pasted table, with the color scale and legend built for you and every detail editable after. Free Ultimaps PNGs download with a small "made with ultimaps.com" credit, and the Pro and one-map prices are on the page.

Compared on by the Ultimaps team. Sources below.

Try Ultimaps free

When Ultimaps fits better than Flourish

You need a file, not only an embed

Flourish's free plan has no image download, and on paid plans its SVG leaves out text and legends. Ultimaps exports a free PNG with a small "made with ultimaps.com" credit, and a clean SVG, PDF and high-resolution PNG with Pro or a €12.50 one-map pass.

Your map is US counties or ZIP codes

Flourish has region starting points for 65 countries and areas plus a GeoJSON library, and you upload anything else. Ultimaps has all ~3,100 US counties in one map, a county map for every state and ZIP code maps for every state, DC, Puerto Rico, Guam and the US Virgin Islands. Every Ultimaps base map is checked by hand against current official divisions and updated when they change.

Your data does not carry exact IDs

In Flourish, the values in your data must match the region geometry's IDs exactly, whether those are codes or names. Ultimaps matches each row to a region by name or code on import, so a column of state names is enough.

Prices you can see

Flourish publishes no prices. Presenter comes with a Canva Business or Enterprise plan, and Publisher and Enterprise go through sales. Ultimaps Pro is €49 a month or €499 a year, and a 24-hour pass for one map costs €12.50.

Ultimaps vs Flourish, feature by feature

Swipe the table sideways to see every column.

Ultimaps and Flourish compared feature by feature
FeatureUltimapsFlourish
Better on Ultimaps
Free exportsPartly. PNG at screen resolution, sharp for web pages and slides, with a small "made with ultimaps.com" credit. Print-size PNG (6×) with Pro or a one-map passNo. Image downloads are part of paid plans[1]
US countiesYes. All ~3,100 in one map, plus a county map for every statePartly. Not among its built-in maps. Upload your own GeoJSON[2]
US ZIP codesYes. ZIP (Census ZCTA) maps for every state, DC, Puerto Rico, Guam and the US Virgin Islands, plus a national 3-digit map. No nationwide 5-digit mapPartly. Not among its built-in maps. Upload your own GeoJSON[2]
Matching rows to regionsYes. Automatic, by region name or codePartly. Region IDs must match exactly[3]
Color scale from numbers: Jenks natural breaksYes. Suggested from the data. Gradient, steps or groups. Equal interval, quantile, Jenks, pretty or customYes. Linear, or bins: fixed-width, quantile or custom (Jenks is not listed)[4]
Paid plans€12.50 ($14.90) for one map (24-hour pass), or Pro €49/month or €499/yearNo public prices. Presenter comes with Canva Business or Enterprise[5]
APIYes. Map image API with a keyless free tierPartly. Enterprise only[5]
Region labelsYes. Names, values or both. Drag, rename, resize or rotate any label right on the map. Crowded labels are listed for you to fix instead of hiddenPartly. From a data column. Overlapping labels are hidden by default, steered by priority and hide lists[6]
Both do it
Data importYes. CSV, TSV, Excel, Google Sheets, Notion or paste. AI from a prompt or a picture of a mapYes. Excel or CSV upload, paste. Live Google Sheet on Publisher and up[7]
PinsYes. From addresses (geocoded), coordinates or a fileYes. A points layer and a marker map template[2]
Text and arrows on the mapYes. Free text, rectangles, lines with arrowheads and callouts tied to regions, anywhere on the canvasYes. Labels, text blocks, connector lines and arrows[8]
Embed on a websiteYes. Iframe, and share links that turn into live maps in Notion, WordPress, Ghost and Substack. Free with a small "made with ultimaps.com" creditYes. Script embed, iframe and oEmbed. Free embeds carry attribution[9]
SVGPartly. Vector SVG with the title, legend and labels kept. €12.50 for one map, or ProPartly. Presenter and up, SVG templates only (text and legends are left out)[1]
Credit on free maps"made with ultimaps.com" on free PNGs and embeds. None on Pro or a one-map pass exportFlourish credit on free embeds, which you may not remove. Removing it on websites needs Publisher[10]
AIYes. AI import from a prompt or a picture of a map. 20 AI requests a month freeYes. Flourish Assistant on every plan, with a tiered allowance[5]
Maps from ChatGPT and ClaudeYes. Our own MCP server, free. In ChatGPT's app directory, added to Claude by URL, no account or key to startPartly. Flourish Connector for MCP tools. Plans not stated[5]
Where Flourish goes further
Interactive mapsYes. Tooltips, popups, click-through links, zoom and an interactive legendYes. Hover, click, zoom, popups, filters, time slider, animation[2]
Your own boundariesNo. You cannot upload them. Custom maps made to order, from €49 per map with no subscriptionYes. Upload GeoJSON, about 5 MB[11]

Not stated means the tool’s own pages do not say, or we could not confirm it. Numbers in brackets link to the source.

Pricing: Ultimaps vs Flourish

Both are free to start. Flourish keeps its paid prices off its site. Ultimaps lists its prices: a pass for one map, or Pro monthly or yearly.

Flourish plans
Flourish planPrice
Free: All templates, unlimited projects. Published projects are public and carry attribution. No image downloads.US$0[5]
Presenter: Adds PNG, JPEG and SVG downloads.Comes with a Canva Business or Enterprise plan[5]
PublisherContact sales[5]
EnterpriseContact sales[5]

Ultimaps plans

Free

€0

Free forever

Make maps from your data and share them. No card, and no sign-up until you save or publish.

Open Studio

No sign-up or card needed

What’s included

Pro

: Save 15%

Billed monthly: €49. Billed yearly: €41.58/month

Billed €499 yearly

For professionals who publish maps often. Pays for itself from about 4 maps a month.

Get Pro

Cancel anytime

Everything in Free, plus

Custom

Custom

Tailored to your needs

For organizations that need maps in their own brand, a map we don't have or custom map behavior.

Talk to us

Custom maps from €49 per map

Everything in Pro, plus

Just one map? €12.50 per map

High-res PNG, SVG and PDF with no credit. The files are yours to use commercially, forever, and you can re-export that map for 24 hours.

Exporting 4 or more maps a month? Pro costs less.

Make your map

No card for Free · Cancel anytime, Pro runs to the end of your paid period · 30% off for non-profits

Visa, Mastercard, Amex, PayPal

The same data in both tools

One table, two tools: median household income in all 50 states and DC in 2024, from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey. Download the CSV and try both yourself.

US map of 2024 median household income by state on a dark background, shaded in six blue classes with state labels, from the Census Bureau
Median household income by state, 2024, made in Ultimaps from 51 rows. Data: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 1-year estimates (B19013) (Public domain).
Open this map in Studio Download the data (CSV)

In Ultimaps

  1. Open Studio, start a United States map and open Import Data.
  2. Paste the two columns (state and income) or upload the CSV. All 51 rows match by state name.
  3. Ultimaps suggests a color scale and builds the legend. Set the number format to currency so the legend reads in dollars.
  4. Add a popup template that shows the income, then publish and embed the map, or export a PNG.

In Flourish

  1. Start a Projection map and pick the USA region starting point.
  2. Upload or paste the table. Each state must match an ID in the region geometry exactly, as a code or a name.
  3. Switch the color scale from categorical to sequential, then choose linear or bins (fixed-width, quantile or custom).
  4. Publish to embed the map with Flourish attribution. Image downloads need a paid plan.

Flourish’s own guide: Projection map: an overview

Switching from Flourish

Bring the data, not the project.

  1. Open the spreadsheet you built the Flourish map from.
  2. In Ultimaps Studio, start the matching base map and import the file. Rows match by region name or code, so your values no longer have to match the geometry's IDs exactly.
  3. Pick the column that colors the map. Keep the rest for tooltips and popups, written as templates with your column names.
  4. Publish, then swap the Flourish embed for the Ultimaps iframe, or paste the map link into Notion, WordPress, Ghost or Substack.

Where Flourish is still ahead

  • Storytelling: animation, time sliders, filters and stories, with maps among 50+ templates in all.
  • 3D maps and globes, heatmaps, connection globes and 40+ projections.
  • Your own boundaries: upload GeoJSON of about 5 MB. Ultimaps has no upload. We make custom maps to order, from €49 per map with no subscription.
  • Canva: on Presenter, which comes with Canva Business or Enterprise, interactive Flourish charts go into Canva designs without attribution.

Ultimaps vs Flourish: questions

Ultimaps fits when you need a map more than a data story. It downloads a free PNG with a small "made with ultimaps.com" credit, while Flourish has no image download on its free plan. It has every US county and every state ZIP code map built in, where Flourish starts from 65 countries and areas and asks you to upload other boundaries as GeoJSON. And it matches rows to regions by name or code, where Flourish needs IDs that match its geometry exactly. Ultimaps also classifies with Jenks natural breaks, adds pins from addresses and lists its prices: €49 a month or €499 a year for Pro, or €12.50 for one map. Flourish is the better choice for animated, filterable stories, 3D globes and maps that sit next to other charts.

Yes, with limits that matter for maps. The free plan includes all 50+ templates, unlimited projects and stories, and website embeds with Flourish attribution. Projects stay private until you publish, but published free projects are public: they appear on a page that search engines index, and other users can duplicate them by default. The free plan has no image downloads. PNG, JPEG and SVG come with Presenter, which is part of a Canva Business or Enterprise plan, and Publisher removes the attribution on websites. Ultimaps is free for building, saving, publishing and embedding maps, with PNG downloads at screen resolution that carry a small "made with ultimaps.com" credit. Clean high-resolution PNG, SVG and PDF files need Pro or a €12.50 one-map pass.

On paid plans only. Flourish's help center says image downloads are part of its paid plans: Presenter gives PNG, JPEG and SVG. SVG works only for SVG-based templates, and it leaves out text and legends. WebGL templates such as the 3D map have no image download at all, and Flourish suggests taking a screenshot. In Ultimaps, every map downloads as a PNG on the free plan, at screen resolution with a small "made with ultimaps.com" credit. With Pro (€49 a month or €499 a year) or a €12.50 one-map pass valid for 24 hours, you get a vector SVG that keeps the title, legend and labels, a PDF, and a PNG at 6 times the canvas size, for example 7,200 by 5,400 px for a 4:3 map, all without a credit.

Not among its built-in maps. Flourish offers region starting points for 65 countries and areas, including the United States, and a repository of GeoJSON files you can download. Its help pages do not list US counties or ZIP codes, so for those you upload your own GeoJSON to a Projection map, of about 5 MB. Ultimaps has every US county built in: all ~3,100 in one map and a separate county map for each of the 50 states. It also has ZIP code maps for every state, DC, Puerto Rico, Guam and the US Virgin Islands, built from Census ZCTAs, which approximate USPS ZIP codes, plus a national 3-digit ZIP map. Each one opens ready to color by hand or from a spreadsheet.

Flourish does not publish prices. Its pricing page lists four plans. Free costs nothing. Presenter comes with a Canva Business or Enterprise plan and is billed through Canva. Publisher and Enterprise are custom contracts with invoicing, so you contact sales. Price figures you see on third-party sites do not come from Flourish. Ultimaps lists its Pro and one-map prices on its site. The free plan covers unlimited maps, saving, publishing and embedding with a small "made with ultimaps.com" credit. Pro costs €49 a month or €499 a year and adds high-resolution PNG, SVG and PDF files without a credit, maps and embeds without branding, templates, and higher monthly limits for address lookups and AI. One map on its own costs €12.50 ($14.90 in US dollars) for a 24-hour pass.

Yes. Publish a map in Ultimaps and visitors can hover a region or pin to see a tooltip, and click it for a popup or a link to another page. The content is a template that pulls in your data columns, written in an editor with a live preview, and you can override it for any single region or pin. Viewers can pan and zoom, and the interactive legend highlights the regions behind each legend item. You share the map by link, embed it with an iframe, or paste the link into Notion, WordPress, Ghost or Substack to show the live map. Flourish goes further for storytelling, with filters, time sliders and animation. Ultimaps also exports files for print and slides.

More comparisons

Ultimaps vs Datawrapper

Thousands of basemaps and charts in one tool, or popups, hand coloring and one clean map without a subscription.

Ultimaps vs MapChart

Hand coloring and free 10,000 px exports, or data import, pins and maps you embed.

MapChart alternatives

Nine map makers for people who outgrew hand coloring, each with its free plan, price and best use.

Sources

Ultimaps is not affiliated with Flourish. Flourish is a trademark of its owner. Figures were read from Flourish’s own pages, linked above, on the dates shown. If something here is wrong or out of date, write to [email protected] and we will correct it.

  • : Re-checked: free-plan credits stated for every tool, Ultimaps export and MCP rows added, claims where other tools lead re-verified.
  • : First published. Flourish facts checked on its own site on November 6, 2026.