Frequently Asked Questions

Sarkoa takes the infrastructure work out of sharing geospatial data. Instead of setting up tile servers, converting formats, and managing hosting, you upload your files and Sarkoa creates cloud-optimized copies (PMTiles, COG) for fast map delivery, your originals are always stored and available to download unchanged. Those optimized copies power interactive maps with share links, embeds, and tile URLs for QGIS, ArcGIS Pro, and the web. Built-in comments and annotations let teams review maps together in real time.

You can learn about Sarkoa without an account: this FAQ, pricing, the blog, and public map examples on the homepage. All plans allow commercial use.

Sarkoa is built for GIS professionals, geospatial developers, and teams that need to host, publish, or share spatial data without managing servers, tile caches, or bandwidth-heavy storage.

1. Create a free account at app.sarkoa.com
2. Upload a file and wait for processing to finish
3. Open the built-in map viewer, copy a per-file tile URL for external clients, or build a custom map and share or embed it

No installation is required for the web app.

A Sarkoa CLI and QGIS plugin are available, install from Downloads. An ArcGIS Pro toolbox is in development but not yet publicly released. You can also connect standard QGIS and ArcGIS Pro clients to your tile and file URLs.

Plans are priced per organization, not per user: one subscription covers the whole organization with no per-seat fees. Pricing combines an optional paid plan subscription, included storage and tile quotas, and metered overage when you opt in. Subscription and overage rates are listed in CAD on the pricing page. There are no download or bandwidth fees for map views, tile loads, or file downloads.

No. Clients and viewers never pay to view your data, and they do not need a Sarkoa account to open a share link, public map, or website embed. You pay for your organization's plan and storage. All plans allow commercial use.

Yes. The Free plan includes a monthly storage quota and tile request allowance, no credit card required to start. All paid plans (Community, Essential, Pro) include higher storage limits and unlimited tile requests. See the pricing page for current quotas.

You can opt in to storage overage billing from Profile → Billing. With overage enabled and a payment method on file, usage above your plan quota is metered hourly and billed monthly at your plan's per-GB rate.

Without overage opt-in, new uploads may be blocked when they would push you over included storage.

A tile request is counted each time a map client successfully fetches one tile. Panning and zooming can trigger additional requests; caching can reduce repeats.

• Paid plans: unlimited tile requests included
• Free plan: monthly included allowance; usage above that can be billed as overage when you opt in

Paid unlimited plans are subject to the Fair Use Policy. Indicative monthly guidelines: Community 15M, Essential 45M, Pro 130M tile requests. Traffic far above those levels may lead to notice, throttling, or (for abuse or unresolved excess) suspension of streaming. Sarkoa may also discuss a custom arrangement for sustained high volume.

Community, Essential, and Pro include unlimited tile requests with no tile overage charges for normal product, embed, and API use. Sarkoa publishes indicative fair-use guidelines (not hard product caps) in the Fair Use Policy. If your organization’s traffic is unusually high for your tier, we may notify you and discuss a custom arrangement. Sustained excess may lead to throttling; abuse or unresolved excess may lead to suspension of streaming. Our Terms reserve these rights to protect the platform.

Tile requests always count against the organization that hosts the data (the org that uploaded and stores the file). Map viewers are never billed separately for tiles.

Plan limits and charges

• Community, Essential, and Pro: unlimited tile requests; no tile overage charges
• Free: monthly included allowance (see pricing); usage above that can incur overage only when you opt in from Profile → Billing and add a payment method

Each successful fetch of one of your hosted vector or raster tiles counts as one request. Panning, zooming, and extra layers increase the count. There are no download or bandwidth fees for map views.

Who the request is attributed to

Sarkoa records who triggered each tile load for usage breakdown in Profile → Usage (per member and organization-wide):

Examples, hosting org pays for tile usage

These count toward your organization's quota (and may incur Free-plan overage when opted in):

• You embed a public map on your marketing site; every visitor pan and zoom loads tiles against your organization's quota
• A client opens a share link or email invite to your layer (with or without a Sarkoa account)
• Your public_link GeoTIFF is added in QGIS or a web map by someone outside your org
• A viral public map on maps.sarkoa.com drives heavy traffic to your layers, including from signed-in Sarkoa users

Examples, no tile overage charge

Usage may still be counted on the Free plan, but you will not see a tile overage line item when:

• Your org stays within the Free plan's included monthly tile allowance
• A teammate browses a private draft layer in the app, counts toward your org quota as internal traffic (attributed to the viewer, not external/public loads on published assets)
• You are over the Free allowance but have not opted in to tile overage, new tile loads may be blocked rather than billed

See pricing for current allowances and overage rates.

Yes. Storage over included quota is metered hourly and summarized on your monthly invoice when overage billing is enabled.

Yes. Upgrade from the app, or open the Stripe billing portal from Profile → Billing to change plan, payment method, or invoices.

Vector, single files

• GeoJSON (.geojson, .json)
• GeoPackage (vector layers only, not raster tiles)
• GPX
• CSV (points in longitude and latitude, or Easting and Northing with an EPSG code)
• FlatGeobuf (.fgb)
• KML and KMZ
• GeoParquet (.parquet, .geoparquet)
• TopoJSON
• GML
• DXF (needs an EPSG code at upload)

Raster, single files

• GeoTIFF (.tif, .tiff, .geotiff)
• JPEG 2000 (.jp2, .j2k)
• ERDAS Imagine (.img, .hfa)
• NetCDF (.nc, pick a raster variable after upload)

Multi-file uploads

Select every part in one upload, or zip them together:

• Esri Shapefile: .shp, .shx, .dbf, and .prj
• File Geodatabase: a ZIP with one top-level .gdb folder, plus a layer name if it holds several
• Georeferenced raster with a worldfile: a ZIP holding the PNG or TIFF, its worldfile, and a .prj

More detail on what happens to each one after upload is in File optimization.

• Vector uploads are converted to PMTiles
• Raster uploads are converted to Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF (COG)

The original source upload is preserved.

Most files process in a few minutes, depending on file size and complexity.

The file will show an error status in the dashboard. Common causes include corrupted files, unsupported projections, or limits exceeded.

After processing, you can:

• Open a file in Sarkoa's built-in map viewer
• Add layers to a custom map and style them in the app
• Copy a per-file tile URL for external clients:
  • Web: MapLibre GL JS, Mapbox GL JS, OpenLayers, Leaflet (with PMTiles plugin)
  • Desktop: QGIS, ArcGIS Pro

Yes. Build a custom map in the app, set layer and map visibility for public access, then share the map link or copy the embed code from Custom Maps (an iframe pointing at maps.sarkoa.com).

No domain setup is required for standard embeds. The map, including the street basemap, loads from Sarkoa's maps host inside the iframe, so your website only hosts the embed snippet.

Yes. You can add Sarkoa tile or file URLs as layers in QGIS today. A dedicated Sarkoa QGIS plugin is available, download a ZIP at Downloads (Plugin Manager listing coming soon).

Yes.

• COG rasters can be added as remote raster sources via file URL
• PMTiles vector support depends on your ArcGIS version and compatibility
• A Sarkoa ArcGIS Pro toolbox is in development but not yet publicly released

Tiles are served in Web Mercator (EPSG:3857). Data in other projections is reprojected during processing; your source file is stored in its original CRS.

Install with curl (curl -fsSL https://packages.sarkoa.com/install.sh | bash) or pipx from the CDN wheel. See Downloads for one-line setup. Configure an API key from the web app (Profile → API & Integrations), then run sarkoa --help.

Yes. Sarkoa hosts a remote MCP server at https://mcp.sarkoa.com/mcp. Add that URL plus an API key (Authorization: Bearer …) in Claude, Cursor, or other MCP clients. See Downloads and MCP docs. This exposes fifty live tools: files and folders, uploads via presigned URLs, download and share links, custom map authoring and styling, time series, review comments, webhooks, and queries against your hosted vector layers and raster catalogue. It is listed on the official MCP Registry as com.sarkoa/mcp. An optional skill pack teaches agents how to use MCP/CLI; skills do not replace the MCP connection.

Yes. POST /api/vector/{assetId}/features filters a hosted vector layer by bounding box and attributes and returns GeoJSON, server-side. It reads your original upload, so it works for existing GeoJSON layers with no reprocessing, up to a 32 MB source. Rasters are indexed as a conformant STAC catalogue you can search by space, time, and collection. Both are available from the CLI (sarkoa query, sarkoa stac search) and from agents over MCP. See Feature query.

Yes, on Essential and above. Register an HTTPS endpoint and Sarkoa POSTs a signed event when a file finishes optimizing, a share is created or revoked, a map is published, a series frame lands, or a usage threshold is crossed. Deliveries carry an HMAC-SHA256 Sarkoa-Signature with a 300-second replay window, retry with backoff, and deduplicate on a stable event id. See Webhooks.

Yes, on Essential plan and above. Generate asset API keys in the app under API Routes. The public API gateway is at api.sarkoa.com and serves tiles and dataset metadata; its OpenAPI document is public. Keys for the CLI, QGIS, MCP, feature query, and webhooks are separate and live under Profile → API & Integrations, and those call the app host. The two key types are not interchangeable: API reference has the split.

By default, only your organization and people you share with can access files. Tile URLs use short-lived signed tokens.

You can also mark individual layers or whole maps public when you want anonymous viewers or website embeds.

Yes. Data is encrypted at rest and in transit.

Sarkoa Analytics Inc. is based in Canada. We and our service providers may process data in Canada, the United States, and other countries where we or they operate. Where EU or UK data protection law applies and a transfer needs safeguards, we rely on Standard Contractual Clauses and, where applicable, the UK International Data Transfer Addendum. The full statement, including retention periods, is in the Privacy Notice. A subprocessor list is available to enterprise customers, contact support.

Yes. Deleting a file permanently removes both source and optimized copies from storage. You can also archive files to hide them without immediate deletion.

No. Sarkoa does not sell or share customer geospatial data.

Email support@sarkoa.com. Include your organization name and, if the app gave you a reference code, that code. See Support and contact for what else helps.