Google Maps API Pricing 2026: Cheaper Alternatives per 1,000 Requests

For 100,000 map loads and 20,000 geocoding requests a month, Stadia Maps' Standard plan is the lowest published price we found at $80, checked on the vendor's pricing page on October 10, 2026. Google Maps Platform bills the same usage at $680 on pay-as-you-go. The Stadia figure assumes an average load of 50 map tiles. Mapbox, at $250, is the cheapest option that needs no tile assumption.

A store locator shows the problem. Every store page loads a map, and every address typed into search or imported from a CSV gets geocoded. Once that traffic is steady, the map bill is a line item someone asks about. This page prices that usage on five map APIs, using only rates read on each vendor's own pages, and checks a sixth, HERE, which publishes no rates. It also shows where the cheapest option changes, because the vendors count usage in different units.

How we priced it

Each vendor bills in its own unit. Google and Mapbox charge a map load when the map initializes. MapTiler charges a session for the same event. Stadia and Geoapify charge per tile and per credit, so their cost depends on how many tiles a load fetches. We keep each vendor's unit as published and do not convert between them.

Free allowances come off first. Each tier's rate then applies to the calls inside that band. All prices are in US dollars. Sources: Google's per-SKU price list, Google's subscriptions, Mapbox pricing, MapTiler pricing, Geoapify pricing and its pricing details, Stadia Maps pricing, and HERE's Base Plan page. All were read on October 10, 2026. Google's per-SKU list was last updated October 7, 2026.

Devshot data: our data model prices one usage profile on five published rate cards, read October 10, 2026. Dupple has no usage data for map APIs, so the scenario is set by us, and the arithmetic is shown.

For the same method applied to storage, see object storage pricing compared. AI calls are priced per million tokens in best LLM APIs.

Cost at 100,000 loads and 20,000 geocodes

Sorted by monthly cost. Read the last column before you compare, because the units differ.

Provider	Plan or rate used	Free or included	Monthly cost	Billing unit
Stadia Maps	Standard plan	7,500,000 credits	$80	1 credit per vector tile, 20 per geocode
Geoapify	API 50 plan	50,000 credits a day	$179	0.25 credit per tile, 1 per geocode
Mapbox	Pay-as-you-go	50,000 map loads, 100,000 geocodes	$250	$5.00 per 1,000 loads above 50,000
MapTiler	Flex, $30 a month plus extras	25,000 sessions, 3,000 search sessions	$260	$2.50 per 1,000 extra sessions
Google Maps Platform	Pay-as-you-go, Essentials tier	10,000 calls per SKU	$680	$7.00 per 1,000 loads, $5.00 per 1,000 geocodes
HERE	Base Plan	None published	No list price	Quote only

The arithmetic, once

• Google: 90,000 loads above the free 10,000 at $7.00 per 1,000 come to $630. The 10,000 geocodes above the free 10,000 add $50. Total: $680.
• Mapbox: 50,000 loads above the free 50,000 come to $250 at its rate for that band. The 20,000 geocodes sit inside the 100,000 free, so $0.
• MapTiler: the $30 Flex fee, plus 75,000 sessions above 25,000 at $2.50 per 1,000 ($187.50), plus 17,000 search sessions above 3,000 at $2.50 per 1,000 ($42.50). Total: $260. This assumes each geocode is one search session. MapTiler prices search sessions, not requests.
• Geoapify: 100,000 loads at 50 tiles and 0.25 credit per tile is 1.25 million credits. Adding 20,000 geocodes at one credit each gives 1.27 million a month, about 42,300 a day. The API 50 plan allows 50,000 credits a day, so it is $179.
• Stadia: 100,000 loads at 50 tiles and one credit per tile is 5 million credits. Adding 20,000 geocodes at 20 credits each gives 5.4 million, inside Standard's 7.5 million. Standard costs $80.

The 50-tile figure is Geoapify's own estimate of tiles per user session. Stadia publishes no tiles-per-load figure, so we apply the same count to it, and the result depends on that count. At 14 tiles per map view, Geoapify's other estimate, Stadia's Starter plan with 800,000 credits of overage comes to $44. Geoapify's API 25 plan at $109 covers the same load. Stadia stays the cheapest here, at $44.

Mapbox counts one map load for each initialization of its web map, and that load includes all tile requests. Its price does not move with tile counts.

How the ranking moves with volume

Two other volumes, same method:

Monthly usage	Google Maps	Mapbox	MapTiler Flex	Geoapify	Stadia Maps
10,000 loads, 2,000 geocodes	$0	$0	$30	$59	$20
200,000 loads, 40,000 geocodes	$1,340	$650	$560	$299	$146

At the smallest volume, Google and Mapbox both bill $0, because the free allowances cover the usage. Geoapify's free plan gives 3,000 credits a day, about 90,000 a month, and the 127,000 credits this load needs go past that, so its API 10 plan at $59 applies. Stadia's $20 uses the Starter plan. We assume its forward geocoding is included, since the page lists basic and standard geocoding APIs.

At 200,000 loads, Google costs about twice Mapbox. Stadia's cheapest plan is Standard with overage, 10.8 million credits in total, which comes to $146. In dollars, the gap between Google and Mapbox grows with scale: $430 a month at 100,000 loads and $690 at 200,000.

Over a year, the 100,000-load scenario costs $8,160 on Google, $3,000 on Mapbox and $960 on Stadia.

Google: what the monthly bill contains

Google Maps Platform bills through the Google Cloud console, and Toolradar profiles Google Cloud.

• The $200 credit is gone. Google's pricing page says that from March 1, 2025 it replaced the $200 monthly credit with free calls per SKU. Dynamic Maps and Geocoding each get 10,000 free a month. Any guide built on the old credit is out of date.
• The bands. Dynamic Maps costs $7.00 per 1,000 loads from 10,001 to 100,000, and $5.60 from 100,001 to 500,000. Geocoding steps down to $4.00 per 1,000 for requests from 100,001 to 500,000.
• Subscriptions. Starter is $100 a month for 50,000 combined calls, covering Dynamic Maps and Geocoding. Essentials is $275 for 100,000 calls, and Pro is $1,200 for 250,000. Unused calls do not roll over. Starter is the cheap Google route: 50,000 loads cost $280 pay-as-you-go, so Starter saves $180 a month.
• Over the limit. Calls above a plan's limit bill at pay-as-you-go rates. The scenario here, 100,000 loads plus 20,000 geocodes, is above Essentials' 100,000-call limit, so it is priced pay-as-you-go.

The alternatives, one by one

Mapbox: the price that needs no assumption

Mapbox's map loads are free to 50,000 a month, then $5.00 per 1,000 to 100,000, and $4.00 per 1,000 to 200,000. Its Temporary Geocoding API is free to 100,000 requests, then $0.75 per 1,000 to 500,000. The trap is storage. Results you keep, or batch-geocode, need the Permanent Geocoding API. That product has no free tier on the page, and it costs $5.00 per 1,000 for the first 500,000 monthly requests. Storing 20,000 geocodes costs $100 a month.

Stadia Maps: cheapest paid tiers, priced in credits

Starter is $20 a month for 1,000,000 credits, with extra credits at 3 cents per 1,000. Standard gives 7,500,000 credits, with extra at 2 cents per 1,000. Professional gives 25,000,000 credits, with extra at 1.5 cents per 1,000. A vector tile costs one credit and a forward geocode costs 20, so geocoding is expensive per call. Stadia's free plan allows 200,000 credits a month, but it does not permit commercial use, so it fits prototypes only.

Geoapify: a flat fee for a daily credit allowance

Geoapify sells daily credit allowances at a flat monthly fee: 10,000 credits a day for $59, 25,000 for $109, 50,000 for $179, and 100,000 for $299. A tile costs 0.25 credit and a geocode one. Its free plan gives 3,000 credits a day and allows commercial use with attribution. The limits are soft. Daily caps make peak traffic the risk, so check your busiest day, not only the monthly total.

MapTiler: sessions plus API requests

MapTiler bills a session each time a map object initializes. Flex is $30 a month, with 25,000 sessions, 3,000 search sessions and 500,000 API requests. Above those, sessions and search sessions cost $2.50 per 1,000, and API requests cost $0.15 per 1,000. The Free plan, 5,000 sessions, is for testing and non-commercial use.

HERE: no price to rank

HERE's Base Plan page offers a "Contact Us" button and no rates. A quote may suit a large account, but nothing on the page lets a buyer compare it, so HERE is left out of the ranking.

Which one to pick

• Keep Google if you need the rest of its platform. This page prices map loads and geocoding only, and Google's cost at this volume is the highest here.
• Pick Mapbox when the bill must not depend on tile counts, and when you do not store geocodes, since storage is the costly tier.
• Pick Stadia when you can measure tiles per load and the traffic is large, on a paid tier. Its free plan does not allow commercial use.
• Pick Geoapify for a flat fee and steady traffic, and a free plan that allows commercial use with attribution.

The map is one line on a developer's bill, next to hosting, authentication and email. Cheaper Vercel alternatives prices hosting for a three-developer team, Vercel vs Netlify compares the two platforms, and authentication pricing compared covers the login layer. Best transactional email APIs prices email at 50,000 messages, and best serverless platforms lists where the app itself can run.

If you serve tiles yourself, the cost moves to a server bill. The best cheap VPS hosting guide prices that side. Free tiers across providers are compared in cloud free tiers compared, and free database hosting covers the same question for databases.

Frequently asked questions

What does the Google Maps API cost per 1,000 requests?

Dynamic Maps costs $7.00 per 1,000 loads from 10,001 to 100,000 a month, after 10,000 free loads. Geocoding costs $5.00 per 1,000 requests from 10,001 to 100,000, after 10,000 free. Both rates are from Google's per-SKU list, last updated October 7, 2026.

Is there a cheaper Google Maps alternative?

Yes. For 100,000 map loads and 20,000 geocodes a month, Stadia Maps' Standard plan is $80, against $680 on Google pay-as-you-go. The Stadia figure assumes 50 tiles per load. Mapbox needs no such assumption, and it also undercuts Google at that volume.

Is Mapbox cheaper than Google Maps?

At 100,000 loads and 20,000 geocodes, yes: $250 a month against Google's pay-as-you-go bill. Mapbox's 50,000 free loads beat Google's 10,000 free per SKU, and its map load includes tile requests. Stored geocodes cost more on Mapbox, and that tier has no free allowance.

Is there a free Google Maps API?

Yes, inside per-SKU free calls: 10,000 Dynamic Maps loads and 10,000 geocodes a month. Google replaced its $200 monthly credit with those allowances on March 1, 2025. Guides that still quote the credit are out of date.

Which map APIs have a free plan for commercial use?

Geoapify's free plan allows commercial use with attribution. Stadia's free plan does not, and MapTiler's Free plan covers testing and non-commercial work only. Google and Mapbox give free monthly allowances inside their pay-as-you-go pricing, rather than a separate free plan. Check their terms for your use case.

Does Google Maps have a cheaper subscription?

Starter costs $100 a month for 50,000 combined calls, covering Dynamic Maps and Geocoding. That is $180 less than pay-as-you-go for 50,000 loads. Essentials costs $275 for 100,000 calls. Calls over a plan's limit bill at pay-as-you-go rates.

Does HERE publish maps prices?

Not on its Base Plan page, which offers only "Contact Us". A quote is needed before any comparison, so HERE is not ranked here.

Cite this: Devshot, "Google Maps API Pricing 2026: Cheaper Alternatives per 1,000 Requests", October 2026.

Rates change without notice, so check each vendor's page before you commit a budget. Devshot's newsletter follows the developer tool and price changes behind pages like this one, at devshot.co.

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