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Google Maps Platform

cloud.google.com

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Re: Google Maps Platform

#131

Post by elyobo »

lukeqsee wrote: post #120
elyobo wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try $0/month to $20k/month :-/

What services do you use? I'm working on a startup in this space, and I could definitely recommend a set of services that replace Google for much cheaper (even if you didn't use us ;) ).

Primarily just maps; real estate sector. The $20k is a ballpark for one project, another would add another ~$5k a month.

It's a good motivation to improve our usage of their APIs and I'm sure that I can bring down those cost estimates (by reducing API usage overall and by switching some to use the static map API - although the caps on resolution gave us problems with that in the past).

Re: Google Maps Platform

#132

Post by tj89 »

zylepe wrote: post #129
tj89 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While not to your degree I'm in a similar position. They only gave us 30 days to figure all this out which is ridiculous. Where did you find your monthly API calls? I can't seem to get any numbers other than daily for the last week

https://console.cloud.google.com/apis/dashboard - at first I thought I was in the clear, then I realized I had 1 day selected.

I don't think that's specific enough. For example all the places API calls are grouped together but there are 13 types at different prices. I don't see any way to figure out how much we'll be paying.

For me looks like I went from basically free to $600/mo just for map views. I have no idea how much more I'll have to pay for API calls because they completely obfuscate the data.

Now we have 30 days to figure out how to make the money work or find another solution. Pretty crappy of an API provider (let alone Google) to do this. At least now we know not to trust our apps / sites infrastructure to Google... they aren't the same "do no evil" company they used to be.

Re: Google Maps Platform

#133

Post by [deleted] »

chrishynes wrote: post #118
NelsonMinar wrote: post #71

Mapbox has an excellent alternative map platform based largely but not entirely on OpenStreetMap data. Mapbox GL JS in particular is a joy to work with and extend. https://www.mapbox.com/ It's not free, but it's very easy to use and the pricing is roughly 1/10th of Google's when you get past the free tier: https://www.mapbox.com/pricing/ Mapzen used to be an alternative but sadly they shut down. However many of their…

Thinking seriously about switching to MapBox. Google's pricing is insane after this change -- $7 per 1000 map views!?!?! Did they add an extra zero accidentally?

[deleted]

Re: Google Maps Platform

#134

Post by theDoug »

jedberg wrote: post #74
canada_dry wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only silver lining is that www.openstreetmap.org (OSM) will hopefully get more love. Since google admits that 98% of current users will continue to incur 0 cost this is simply a blatant way of getting a real name associated with their user data.

Why does everyone always assume the worst? > this is simply a blatant way of getting a real name associated with their user data Or maybe it's a way to control access to their systems in a more reasonable and auditable way, and prevent some abuse too.

Any service priced $free or not tied to a credit card tends to see people play at incredibly dumb levels of abuse. Within a month of Gmail going public I remember people already trying to string accounts together as a makeshift multi-GB FTP store.

Disclosure: I work in Google Cloud, not on this

Re: Google Maps Platform

#135

Post by jedberg »

theDoug wrote: post #134
jedberg wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does everyone always assume the worst? > this is simply a blatant way of getting a real name associated with their user data Or maybe it's a way to control access to their systems in a more reasonable and auditable way, and prevent some abuse too.

Any service priced $free or not tied to a credit card tends to see people play at incredibly dumb levels of abuse. Within a month of Gmail going public I remember people already trying to string accounts together as a makeshift multi-GB FTP store. Disclosure: I work in Google Cloud, not on this

Yup. As someone who ran a free service for many years, it’s amazing how creative the abusers can be.

Re: Google Maps Platform

#136

Post by DomesticMouse »

2dvisio wrote: post #109

Wow. I teach a course of mobile programming with Android. Now I will have to remove the section explaining Google maps API as I cannot ask my students to add their Credit card info online just for the course... Any other free alternative?

Fwiw, there is a viable work around. Android (and iOS) usage of the Google Maps APIs remain free. See the Mobile Native Dynamic Maps line on our pricing sheet: https://cloud.google.com/maps-platform/pricing/sheet/

You can construct API keys that are restricted to an Android signing key, use it for the duration of the class, and then revoke it after the course work is done.

Re: Google Maps Platform

#137

Post by lukeqsee »

elyobo wrote: post #131
lukeqsee wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What services do you use? I'm working on a startup in this space, and I could definitely recommend a set of services that replace Google for much cheaper (even if you didn't use us ;) ).

Primarily just maps; real estate sector. The $20k is a ballpark for one project, another would add another ~$5k a month. It's a good motivation to improve our usage of their APIs and I'm sure that I can bring down those cost estimates (by reducing API usage overall and by switching some to use the static map API - although the caps on resolution gave us problems with that in the past).

That makes sense; well, if you wish, please reach out to me at luke@stadiamaps.com

We have a lot of customers in real estate, and would love to set you up with something that would be significantly less than $25k. These situations are why we started the company. :)

I think our tiers work very well for the real estate space overall.

Re: Google Maps Platform

#138

Post by derivagral »

theDoug wrote: post #134
jedberg wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does everyone always assume the worst? > this is simply a blatant way of getting a real name associated with their user data Or maybe it's a way to control access to their systems in a more reasonable and auditable way, and prevent some abuse too.

Any service priced $free or not tied to a credit card tends to see people play at incredibly dumb levels of abuse. Within a month of Gmail going public I remember people already trying to string accounts together as a makeshift multi-GB FTP store. Disclosure: I work in Google Cloud, not on this

For what it is worth, I had a fun college project for a class doing exactly this ("distributed filesystem".)

Back before github and dropbox took off, anyway.

Re: Google Maps Platform

#139

Post by spectre256 »

kinard wrote: post #12

WOW, my costs are going to go from about $320 per month to $3,750 per month. Time to find a different solution! GULP!

Hey kinard,

I'm an ex-Mapzen teammember, and we've set up a new, paid, geocoding service called https://geocode.earth. I suspect we can give you what you need around geocoding, especially autocomplete, for much less than Google. Feel free to request an invite or reach out to me personally.

Re: Google Maps Platform

#140

Post by spectre256 »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #71

Mapbox has an excellent alternative map platform based largely but not entirely on OpenStreetMap data. Mapbox GL JS in particular is a joy to work with and extend. https://www.mapbox.com/ It's not free, but it's very easy to use and the pricing is roughly 1/10th of Google's when you get past the free tier: https://www.mapbox.com/pricing/ Mapzen used to be an alternative but sadly they shut down. However many of their…

I'll tag on to Nelson's post to plug a new geocoding service two of us ex-Mapzen folks started called https://geocode.earth.

We offer geocoding, especially autocomplete, with much more liberal usage restrictions than either Mapquest or Google, and some pretty powerful features like address interpolation.

As we're still really getting the platform around the geocoder off the ground, we don't have a permanent free tier, but I'd be happy to set anyone up with a demo key if they are looking for something new.

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