Google Maps API pricing, explained

How Google bills for Maps

Google Maps Platform splits into dozens of SKUs (Text Search, Place Details, Geocoding, Dynamic Maps, and so on), and every SKU sits in one of three tiers: Essentials, Pro, or Enterprise. You pay per request, priced per 1,000.

The old $200 monthly credit was retired in March 2025. In its place, each SKU now carries its own free monthly call count: 10,000 calls for Essentials SKUs, 5,000 for Pro, and 1,000 for Enterprise. Embedded maps and the mobile map SDKs stay free with no cap, which is a genuinely good deal if all you need is a map on a page.

For Places requests, the fields you ask for decide the tier. Request ratings, phone numbers, websites, or opening hours and the call bills at the Enterprise rate. Rates also step down on volume: above 100,000 calls a month prices drop roughly 20%, and they fall further past 1 million.

The price table

The SKUs most people mean when they search for Google Maps API pricing, at the base rate before volume discounts:

Four things that surprise people

1. Fields pick your rate. A Places request that asks for phone, website, hours, or ratings bills at the Enterprise tier. For business data work, those are exactly the fields you want, so plan on the $35 rate for Text Search.

2. You pay per request, whatever comes back. A text search that returns 2 places bills the same 3.5 cents as one that returns 20. A search that returns nothing bills too.

3. Results cap at 60 per query. Each Text Search request returns up to 20 places, and one query tops out at 60 across 3 billed pages. Covering a whole city means fanning out many overlapping queries, and the overlap bills full price for duplicates.

4. You can't keep most of the data. Google's Maps service terms (§14.3) restrict caching or storing Places content beyond place IDs, and lat/lng can only be cached for 30 days. For a lead list, that rule matters more than the rates do.

The same job, priced per business

Take a concrete job: 1,000 dentists with phone, website, rating, and hours.

Through the official API that data sits at the Enterprise tier: $35 per 1,000 Text Search requests, or 3.5 cents each, with up to 20 places per request. Best case, every request comes back with 20 fresh businesses and the job costs $1.75. That beats our entry rate, and we'd rather tell you that than hide it.

Real pulls miss the best case. City coverage means overlapping queries, and duplicates bill full price. Thin queries return 3 or 4 places and bill the same as full ones. Empties bill too. Then the storage terms say the list you just paid for can't be kept beyond place IDs.

CrustAPI's meter only moves when a business comes back. 1,000 dentists cost 1,000 credits, $1.96 at the entry pack, however many searches it took. Empty searches cost nothing, every record arrives complete, and it's yours to store. One catch: a business returned by two of your searches bills each time, so tight queries still pay off.

What a credit buys

One request, straight from the docs to a terminal. Here's the result as CSV first, then the same records as JSON. This pull came back in about a second:

One credit per business

Prepaid packs, self-serve, ex-tax. Credits never expire, so an unused pack waits for your next project. Every plan starts on top of 3,000 free queries a month with no card.

Common questions