A Google Places API alternative that keeps Google's data
Search a city and get the same Google places you'd see yourself: name, address, rating, and coordinates.
One request, ten places
That call returned 10 places in about 1.8 seconds and cost 1 credit for the whole search. The priceLevel field was null here because Google didn't show a price band for this place. It's only present when Google lists one, so treat it as best-effort.
The fields you get back
Most "alternatives" hand you a different dataset
When people search for a Google Places API alternative, the usual answers are Mapbox, HERE, OpenStreetMap, or Foursquare. Those are real map providers, and for some jobs they fit well. The catch is they are a different set of places, ratings, and review counts than the ones Google shows. If your app or your customers expect the numbers they see on Google, swapping the dataset changes the answer.
CrustAPI is the alternative that keeps Google's own live place data. You search a term and a city, and you get the same public results a person would see, in a lean flat shape. No field-by-field pricing tiers, no restrictions on where you can show the data, and 1 credit per search no matter how many places come back.
Switching dataset vs keeping Google's
| Different-dataset alternatives | CrustAPI Places | |
|---|---|---|
| Whose data | Mapbox, HERE, OSM, or Foursquare | Google's own public places |
| Ratings and review counts | Match that provider, not Google | The Google numbers people see |
| Shape | Varies by provider | Lean flat JSON, one schema |
| Billing | Varies by provider | 1 credit per search, empty is free |
| Free tier | Varies by provider | 3,000 credits / month, no card |
The data is public and logged out. We run the infrastructure so you don't stand up and babysit a scraper, and you read plain JSON back.
Who this fits
Local directories
Lead-gen by city
Store locators and maps
One credit per search
A search that returns ten places costs 1 credit, not ten. A search that returns nothing costs nothing. Prepaid packs, credits never expire: 25k for $49, 100k for $149, 500k for $549, up to 250M, all self-serve, ex-tax. The free tier refills at 3,000 credits a month with no card.
When you want richer per-business fields: type=places is the lean flat-rate shape, built for the fields above at 1 credit per search. If you need more detail per business, that lives on the Google Maps endpoint. And if Mapbox, HERE, or Foursquare data is genuinely what your product needs, one of those providers is the right call, not this.
Common questions
Written by Dawson Young, founder of CrustAPI. Receipt pulled live from the API on July 15, 2026. This is a spoke of the Google Search API; for richer per-business detail see the Google Maps scraper API.
Keep Google's data, drop the field pricing
3,000 free credits covers a real run across a few cities. Point a place query at the API and read the JSON.
Get 3,000 free credits