What the Google Places API really costs per 1,000 requests, and when a scraper is cheaper
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Maintained by Datapika · We publish this product under the openclawai account on Apify. Product reference
Google Places API pricing is per SKU. Since Google's March 2025 restructure into Essentials, Pro, and Enterprise tiers, Place Details Essentials costs $5.00 per 1,000 requests, Place Details Pro $17.00, Text Search Pro $32.00, and Text Search Enterprise $35.00 (Google Maps Platform pricing page, checked September 6, 2026). The $200 monthly credit ended on February 28, 2025, replaced by per-SKU free caps: 10,000 Essentials, 5,000 Pro, and 1,000 Enterprise calls per month. For bulk place records, a scraper is cheaper: Datapika charges a flat $0.003 per place, so 1,000 places cost $3.00.
How much does the Google Places API cost per 1,000 requests?
Google prices the Places API by SKU, and the SKU depends on which endpoint you call and which fields you request. On the Essentials tier, Place Details and Geocoding are $5.00 per 1,000 requests and Autocomplete requests are $2.83 per 1,000. On the Pro tier, Place Details is $17.00 per 1,000 while Text Search and Nearby Search are $32.00 per 1,000. On the Enterprise tier, Place Details is $20.00 and Text Search and Nearby Search are $35.00 per 1,000. All figures are from Google's Maps Platform pricing list, checked September 6, 2026.
Those are the entry rates. Google discounts by monthly volume, with the published ranges running down to $0.38 per 1,000 for Place Details Essentials, $2.40 for Text Search Pro, and $2.63 for Text Search Enterprise at the highest usage bands, so a very large integration pays far less per call than a small one. A Text Search request can return up to 20 places per page, which lowers the effective per-place cost of discovery queries; per-place detail lookups bill one request each.
- Place Details: $5.00 (Essentials), $17.00 (Pro), $20.00 (Enterprise) per 1,000 requests (September 6, 2026)
- Text Search and Nearby Search: $32.00 (Pro), $35.00 (Enterprise) per 1,000; IDs-only Text Search is free
- Autocomplete requests: $2.83 per 1,000; sessions linked to a Place Details call are currently free
- Volume discounts scale entry rates down to $0.38 to $2.63 per 1,000 at the highest monthly bands
- The SKU is set by the most expensive field you request, not the average
Is the Google Places API free?
Partly, and less than it used to be. Until February 28, 2025 every Google Maps Platform account received a $200 monthly credit that absorbed small workloads. Google replaced that credit with per-SKU free caps in its March 2025 pricing restructure: each Essentials SKU includes 10,000 free calls per month, each Pro SKU 5,000, and each Enterprise SKU 1,000 (Google Maps Platform pricing and billing pages, checked September 6, 2026). Text Search Essentials, which returns place IDs only, is free without limit, but a bare ID is not a usable record until you spend a Place Details call on it.
For a hobby project the caps are workable: 5,000 free Text Search Pro calls is a real allowance. For anything bulk, they vanish fast. A one-time pull of 10,000 businesses via Text Search Pro burns the free cap in the first half hour and bills the remaining 5,000 requests at $32.00 per 1,000, about $160. New Google Cloud customers also get a one-time $300 trial credit, which delays but does not change the arithmetic.
- The $200 monthly credit ended February 28, 2025 (Google usage-and-billing page, checked September 6, 2026)
- Free caps per SKU per month: 10,000 Essentials, 5,000 Pro, 1,000 Enterprise calls
- Text Search Essentials (IDs only) is unlimited and free, but returns no name, address, or contact fields
- 10,000 Text Search Pro requests: 5,000 free, then about $160 at $32.00 per 1,000
- A one-time $300 trial credit applies to new Google Cloud customers
How does Google Places API billing work?
Billing follows the field mask. Every Places API (New) request declares which fields it wants back, each field belongs to a tier, and the whole request bills at the highest tier of any requested field. Ask a Place Details call for just an address and you pay Essentials rates; add contact fields such as the website and phone number and the same call bills at a higher tier; add ratings, reviews, or other atmosphere-style data and it bills at the top of the Enterprise range. The practical consequence: request only the fields you use, because one careless field in a mask reprices the entire call.
Two more mechanics matter for estimating a bill. First, Autocomplete has session pricing: keystroke requests that end in a Place Details or Address Validation call are bundled into the session, and Google's documentation lists those linked sessions as currently free (checked September 6, 2026). Second, discovery and detail are separate spends: a common pipeline pays once for Text Search to find place IDs, then again for Place Details on each ID, so a 1,000-business list can cost two SKUs, not one.
- The request bills at the highest tier of any field in the field mask
- Contact fields (phone, website, hours) and ratings or reviews push calls into higher tiers
- Autocomplete sessions linked to a Place Details call are currently free (September 6, 2026)
- Typical pipelines pay twice: Text Search to discover IDs, Place Details per ID
- Set a field mask explicitly; defaulting to all fields bills at the top tier
What is a cheaper alternative to the Google Places API for bulk data?
For building datasets rather than serving live app requests, scrapers on Apify undercut the API by an order of magnitude. Datapika's Google Maps scraper charges a flat $0.003 per place plus a $0.00005 actor start (Apify listing, verified September 6, 2026), so 1,000 places cost $3.00 and 10,000 cost $30.00, with no plan tiers. Each record includes the business name, address, phone, website, rating, review count, opening hours, coordinates, and category in one row, fields that would span multiple SKU tiers on the official API, and the top 10 reviews per place are an option.
Compass, the largest Google Maps actor on Apify with about 580,000 users as of September 2026, prices its base place event at $0.004 on the free tier, falling to $0.003 on Bronze and as low as $0.000756 on Diamond (Apify pricing data dated June 30, 2026, re-checked September 6, 2026). Its headline rate on high tiers is cheaper than Datapika's, but the lower tiers require a paid Apify subscription, and reviews, contact enrichment, and filters bill as separate add-on events, $0.0005 per review and $0.001 per filter applied on the free tier. Compare full estimated bills for your exact fields, not headline rates.
- Datapika: flat $0.003 per place, $0.00005 actor start, no tiers (verified September 6, 2026)
- 1,000 places: $3.00 on Datapika versus roughly $160 to $320 via Text Search Pro past the free cap
- Compass: $0.004 per place free tier, down to $0.000756 on Diamond, plus subscription and add-on events
- Compass add-ons on the free tier: $0.0005 per review, $0.002 per extra detail, $0.001 per filter (June 30, 2026 pricing)
- Scraper records bundle name, contact, rating, and hours fields that span multiple API SKU tiers
When should you still use the official Places API?
A scraper and the official API are different products, not substitutes. The Places API is the right tool when your application serves live per-user requests: autocomplete in a checkout form, a store locator rendering on a Google map, or any feature where you need Google's terms of service, SLA, and attribution rules on your side. Google's terms also govern caching and display of Places content, which matters for consumer-facing products.
A scraper fits the workloads the API prices out: lead lists, market research, competitor coverage scans, and offline datasets where you want thousands of complete records once or on a schedule rather than one record per user interaction. Note the structural limits on both sides: Google Maps caps a single search at roughly 120 places, so large scraped datasets come from running several narrower queries, and the API's per-request model means a complete record often costs two calls. Run a small bounded sample on each option with your exact fields and locations before committing a pipeline; the honest comparison is the full bill for usable records, not the per-unit headline.
- Choose the API for live user-facing features, ToS-compliant display, and SLAs
- Choose a scraper for bulk offline datasets, lead generation, and research pulls
- Google Maps returns roughly 120 places per search query; split large areas into narrower queries
- A returned phone number is not verified consent for outreach; check your compliance requirements
- Validate with a bounded sample: record missing fields, duplicates, and the total charge
| Option | Price per 1,000 | Free allowance | Notes | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Place Details Essentials | $5.00 | 10,000 calls/month | ID, address, location fields; volume tiers down to $0.38 | https://developers.google.com/maps/billing-and-pricing/pricing |
| Place Details Pro | $17.00 | 5,000 calls/month | Adds richer place fields; contact and atmosphere fields bill higher | https://developers.google.com/maps/billing-and-pricing/pricing |
| Place Details Enterprise | $20.00 | 1,000 calls/month | Covers contact-level data; ratings and reviews price at the top of the range | https://developers.google.com/maps/billing-and-pricing/pricing |
| Text Search Pro | $32.00 | 5,000 calls/month | Per request, up to 20 places per page; IDs-only Essentials version is free | https://developers.google.com/maps/billing-and-pricing/pricing |
| Text Search Enterprise | $35.00 | 1,000 calls/month | Volume tiers down to $2.63 per 1,000 | https://developers.google.com/maps/billing-and-pricing/pricing |
| Autocomplete requests | $2.83 | 10,000 calls/month | Sessions linked to a Place Details call are currently free | https://developers.google.com/maps/billing-and-pricing/pricing |
| Datapika Google Maps scraper | $3.00 | Apify's $5 monthly free credit | Flat $0.003 per place plus $0.00005 actor start; name, contact, rating, hours, coordinates in one row; reviews optional | https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/openclawai~google-maps-scraper |
| Compass Google Maps scraper | $4.00 free tier ($0.756 on Diamond) | Apify's $5 monthly free credit | Lower tiers need a paid Apify plan; reviews, details, filters, and enrichment bill as add-on events | https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/compass~crawler-google-places |
Sources you can inspect
Product documentation and implementation references. These references describe supported options and billing, not independent proof of performance. Confirm current details before running; examples and estimates are not guarantees.
How to do it
- 1.List the fields your workflow actually needs (name, address, phone, website, rating, hours) and map them to Places API SKUs with an explicit field mask; note which tier the most expensive field triggers.
- 2.Estimate the official bill: requests per month, minus the per-SKU free cap (10,000 / 5,000 / 1,000), times the per-1,000 rate; remember discovery (Text Search) and details (Place Details) bill separately.
- 3.Price the same dataset as a bulk pull: at Datapika's flat $0.003 per place, 1,000 records cost $3.00 and 10,000 cost $30.00; for Compass, add subscription cost and per-event add-ons to the base rate.
- 4.Run a bounded sample on your chosen option with matching inputs, record missing fields, duplicates, and total charges, and re-check both pricing pages before scaling; rates and caps change.
Questions, answered
Is a scraper the same as the official Google Places API?
No. A scraper and an official API have different interfaces, terms, capabilities, and operational constraints. The API is built for live application traffic under Google's terms of service, with SLAs and display rules; a scraper reads public Maps listings into bulk datasets. Choose the approach that fits your application and permitted use, and do not treat the two as interchangeable line items on a price sheet.
What happened to the Google Maps $200 monthly credit?
Google retired it. The usage-and-billing documentation states the $200 monthly credit applied until February 28, 2025; from March 2025 the Places API instead includes free monthly call caps per SKU: 10,000 calls for Essentials SKUs, 5,000 for Pro, and 1,000 for Enterprise (checked September 6, 2026). Light users of a single SKU often come out similar or ahead; workloads spread across paid SKUs generally pay more than they did under the credit.
How much do 10,000 place records cost on the Places API versus a scraper?
Via the API, discovering and detailing 10,000 places typically costs two SKUs: Text Search Pro at $32.00 per 1,000 (5,000 free) plus Place Details at $17.00 to $20.00 per 1,000 depending on fields, which lands in the low hundreds of dollars at entry rates (September 6, 2026). Via Datapika's scraper, 10,000 places cost a flat $30.00 with contact, rating, and hours fields included. The API bill drops at high monthly volume tiers; the scraper price does not change.
Is Datapika cheaper than Compass for Google Maps data?
Not on every plan. The September 6, 2026 snapshot shows Datapika at a flat $3.00 per 1,000 places on any Apify plan, while Compass bills $4.00 per 1,000 on the free tier but as little as $0.756 per 1,000 on the Diamond tier, which requires a paid Apify subscription. Compass also bills reviews, extra details, filters, and enrichment as separate add-on events. Include the subscription and every add-on your run triggers before comparing totals.
Do I need a Google API key or Google Cloud account to use a scraper?
No. Datapika's Google Maps scraper runs on Apify with no Google API key, no Google Cloud project, and no billing account on Google's side. You pay Apify per place delivered at $0.003 (verified September 6, 2026). The trade-off is that you are outside Google's official terms, SLA, and support, so validate coverage yourself: Maps caps a single search at roughly 120 places, and some listings simply do not publish a phone number or website.