If you ask developers who have been using Google’s maps API for some time, you’d easily spot their frustration over Google’s archaic pricing plans and complicated stuff related to that. The company now, with a refreshed identity, has finally brought in much needed change to the Maps API pricing.
The Maps API team said,
Today we’re introducing a simple and flexible option for developers to instantly and easily scale with these Web Service APIs, by opening them up to pay-as-you-go purchasing via the Google Developers Console.
In this new purchasing structure, the Google Maps Geocoding, Directions, Distance Matrix, Roads, Geolocation, Elevation, and Time Zone APIs remain free of charge for the first 2,500 requests per day, and developers may now simply pay $0.50 USD per 1,000 additional requests up to 100,000 requests per API per day.
Developers requiring over 100,000 requests per day should contact Google for premium plans.
Even if you’re not a developer, you would know the sheer importance and popularity of Maps API. It is present in almost ever location based app, even the more popular ones like Uber (though it is planning a mapping service of its own).
Lastly, alongside this change Google has also updated its Google Maps/Earth APIs Terms of Service to include a section on payment terms as well as some clarifications to the deprecation policy, turn-by-turn navigation restrictions and derivative data sets.
