ReportJuly 2026 data · 1,515 markets

The Operators With the Biggest Footprints Are Not the Ones Winning Google

We scanned 1,515 US markets and recorded the top 20 Google Maps results in each one, then aggregated 3,762 listings by operator. Average rank gets worse, not better, in the largest footprint band.

1,515

US markets scanned

100

Operator brands ranked

85.7%

Best top-3 rate, and it is not a national

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Read the full benchmark

All 25 operators with full rank data
Why footprint does not predict placement
Benchmarks to measure your own market against

The metric that matters

Presence Is Not the Same Thing as Winning

Most rankings measure how many markets a brand appears in. That flatters scale and says nothing about performance. Top-3 rate is the share of a brand's markets where it actually reaches positions one to three, which is where the clicks and calls are.

Top 25 operators, July 2026

Ranked by how often they reach the top three where they compete. Brands in fewer than 15 markets are excluded, because a rate needs enough markets behind it to mean anything.

1
Extra Space Storage
71.0%
Markets
507
Top 3
360
Avg rank
6.91
2
Public Storage
50.9%
Markets
523
Top 3
266
Avg rank
8.12
3
U-Haul
8.8%
Markets
445
Top 3
39
Avg rank
11.48
4
CubeSmart
38.9%
Markets
285
Top 3
111
Avg rank
7.37

#	Operator	Markets	Top 3	Top-3 rate	Avg rank
1	Extra Space Storage	507	360	71.0%	6.91
2	Public Storage	523	266	50.9%	8.12
3	U-Haul	445	39	8.8%	11.48
4	CubeSmart	285	111	38.9%	7.37

21 more operators in the full report

Including the regional brand that beats every national operator on both average rank and top-three rate.

Where do you sit?

What Your Average Google Maps Rank Actually Means

Average rank is only meaningful with something to compare it against. These are the national benchmarks from our July 2026 scan.

Better than 6.9

Ahead of Extra Space Storage

You are beating the strongest national operator's average position across 507 markets. 19 brands in this report manage it, nearly all of them regional.

6.9 to 8.1

Between the two biggest operators

Competitive, and the gap to the leaders is execution rather than scale. This is the band most well-run independents land in.

Above 11.5

Where U-Haul sits

Present in the results but below the fold for most searchers. U-Haul is in 445 markets and reaches the top three in 39.

Rank changes within a few miles, because proximity is a ranking input. A single check from your office is not representative of your trade area. Our free Visibility Grader scans 49 points across a five-mile radius and reports the rank at each one.

Also in the report

AI Overviews Appeared on Storage Searches Three Times in 1,515 Markets

Whatever the right long-run answer on AI search is, it is not currently where storage move-ins are won. We recorded 3 AI Overviews across 1,515 markets. That number will rise, and it is worth preparing for. It is not a reason to divert attention from the map pack this quarter.

We cover the preparation that is genuinely worth doing now in our guide to getting found in AI search.

Scope note

These counts come from our map-results scan, where blue-link features are often not attached to the response. Read them as what appeared alongside the map results we collected, not as the frequency of these features across Google search overall. We would rather scope the figure honestly than publish a headline it cannot support.

Two Free Tools That Use the Same Data

Local Visibility Grader

Find your real average rank across a five-mile radius, then compare it against the benchmarks in this report. Free, in about three minutes.

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Self-Storage Demand Index

Monthly search demand, cost per click, and competition for more than 3,500 US cities. Establish whether demand moved before blaming a competitor.

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