Free Parking: How to find free, low-cost and convenient parking near you

If you live anywhere near an urban center, there’s a good chance that you will spend more time than you’d like looking for parking. Planners try to incorporate as many parking spaces as possible, but it’s rarely enough to handle the influx of commuters and everyday drivers that most cities endure. Waiting on a solution can take a lifetime, so it’s up to the market and technology to help frustrated citizens find parking.

Smartphone apps are the perfect answer to this problem because they enable on-the-go assessments of parking spots and can provide maps or directions on reaching them. Most people have a smartphone, so the barrier to entry is low, and many apps are incredibly cheap or even free. They don’t solve every problem, but a solid parking app can help you save time, money, and stress.

Parking apps typically compare prices for garages, lots, and other parking locations to help you find an open spot for a better price. Some allow in-app payments to speed through entry and exit, and you won’t have to keep track of a ticket through the process. That said, you’ll need to ensure the app you choose works in your city and with the particular garage you’re hoping to use. Most apps feature similar layouts and interfaces, but not all apps work in all places.

Apps and Websites to Find Free Parking Near You:

Before we get started, we should talk about apps that help locate free parking. Most of the tech solutions to parking woes focus on paid parking lots, because there’s money to be made, but few offer information on free spots. Parkopedia.com is a good place to start your research, as the site has amassed a database of thousands of free parking lots, including street parking and garages. Others, such as Spot Angels, focus on specific cities and neighborhoods to deliver free parking information. 

Parking Apps:

BestParking

If you’re looking for an app that works in dozens of cities and airports across the United States and Canada, BestParking is your jam. The app has been featured in several major publications and media outlets, including ABC, Fox, CBS, and NBC. It’s got great reviews and boasts 850,000 active users. Parking locations are sorted by price, so you can easily find the best deals around you. 

SpotHero

SpotHero promises discounts of up to 50% off the price you pay at the entry gate. The company is able to do this through partnerships with parking facilities. SpotHero gets to sell the last remaining parking spots for a steep discount, which could save you big on regular parking. The app works in most large cities.

ParkWhiz

ParkWhiz has thousands of parking partners across 35 states and 50 cities. The company purchased BestParking in 2015, expanding its empire, and it owns a business parking subsidiary that helps companies provide and manage parking for employees and customers. Sweetening the deal, ParkWhiz offers discounts of up to 60% in some cases, which bests the industry average.

ParkMe

ParkMe has more than 84,000 locations in over 64 countries, and its app offers an easy way to find, reserve, and pay for spots. If you have a stored credit card, you can pay to reserve a spot early, and the app can track parking spots up to two weeks in the future.

Parking Mate 

Parking Mate provides logs, so you can see where you’ve parked in the past, and the app tracks your time parked to help you avoid expensive tickets and tow bills. If you live in a place with wonky parking laws, Parking Mate enables you to track your parking time and will notify you when your time runs low to prevent towing. The app crowdsources local information, so if you see a spot or learn about a new parking rule, you can share that information in the app for other drivers.