Google Maps API pricing has become too expensive for my project as usage grows. I’m looking for a reliable, affordable alternative with maps, geocoding, and routing. What services have worked well for you?
Don’t point a production app directly at OpenStreetMap’s public tile or Nominatim servers and treat them as a free Google replacement. The data is open, but the public services have strict limits, no SLA, and may block heavy usage. Public Nominatim even prohibits client-side autocomplete.
For the simplest replacement, I’d shortlist Stadia Maps and Geoapify. Both provide hosted maps, geocoding, autocomplete, and routing under one account, so migration is less messy. Another solid setup is MapLibre GL JS for the map frontend, with MapTiler for hosted tiles and geocoding, then a separate routing provider. MapLibre keeps the rendering layer independent, which makes switching providers later much easier. TomTom is worth testing if traffic-aware routes and ETA quality matter more than getting the absolute lowest bill, since it covers display, geocoding, routing, and traffic.
Before choosing, test each service with real addresses and routes from your target region. Geocoding quality varies more than the feature lists suggest. Debounce autocomplete, cache responses where the terms allow it, and compare costs using your actual mix of tile loads, searches, and route requests rather than the headline free tier.
Don’t pick the lowest per-request price without counting integration and maintenance time. If you already run on AWS, Amazon Location Service covers maps, geocoding, and routing while keeping auth and billing in the same stack.
Don’t point a production app at OpenStreetMap’s public tile or Nominatim servers just because the data is free. Those services have strict usage rules, no SLA, and Nominatim limits heavy use to one request per second.
For a hosted OSM-based option, I’d price out Geoapify and Stadia Maps. Both cover map tiles, geocoding, and routing under one account, without requiring you to operate the underlying stack. @mr_matrix’s AWS suggestion makes sense if you’re already deep into AWS, but I wouldn’t choose it solely for consolidated billing.
Before migrating, test each provider with a few hundred real addresses and routes from your busiest regions. The cheapest API is useless if apartment matching, rural addresses, or route quality is worse for your actual users. Keep the map renderer and your backend calls loosely coupled so another pricing change doesn’t force a full rewrite.
Break your current bill into map loads, autocomplete keystrokes, geocodes, and route calculations before comparing providers. A site with millions of map views and occasional searches needs a very different setup from a delivery app making route matrices all day.
I’m skeptical that replacing Google with another all-in-one vendor solves the underlying problem. It may lower the bill today while leaving you exposed to the next pricing change. If map display is the expensive part, a hybrid stack can make more sense: MapLibre in the client, PMTiles on object storage behind a CDN, then a paid service for geocoding and routing. PMTiles is designed to work from S3-compatible storage using range requests, although those requests still count toward your storage provider’s operation charges. It is cheaper in the right traffic pattern, not magically free.
GraphHopper is worth pricing for the search and routing side. It supports both geocoding and routing, works independently of the map renderer, and uses credits rather than a simple flat per-request calculation. That last part deserves attention because a request count alone may not predict the actual plan you need. If your team doesn’t want to manage tiles, styles, data updates, and CDN behavior, then the hosted choices already mentioned, such as Geoapify or Stadia Maps, are probably the more honest bargain.
OpenFreeMap is an interesting option for prototypes or noncritical map display. Its public service currently allows commercial use without API keys or stated request limits, but it explicitly offers no SLA or personalized support. I would not build a customer-facing uptime promise around that public instance. Self-hosting it is a different calculation.
There’s a portability caveat with @mr_matrix’s MapLibre suggestion too. MapLibre keeps the renderer independent, which is useful, but your styles still reference specific tile sources, source-layer names, sprites, and fonts. Changing tile providers can mean rewriting parts of the style if their schemas differ.
My practical take: use a hosted all-in-one provider if engineering time is scarce or routing quality is central to the product. Use the hybrid approach if ordinary map viewing dominates your bill and traffic is predictable. Either way, instrument your current Google usage first and replay a representative batch of real searches and routes. Otherwise you’re comparing marketing pages rather than your actual workload.
If you need to keep geocoding results in your own database, the cheapest-looking provider may be the wrong choice. The confusing part for me was that “maps, geocoding, and routing” sounds like one interchangeable package, but each service can have different rules for caching results, storing coordinates, showing attribution, and using its geocodes with another company’s map.
That matters for ordinary features such as saving a customer’s delivery address. A low request price is less useful if you must geocode the same address repeatedly because long-term storage is restricted. The same issue comes up with autocomplete results, route history, and analytics based on returned coordinates. I would check those terms before spending time on an integration, especially if the app mixes providers.
I agree with @silverminer9208 about separating the renderer from the paid APIs, but MapLibre only solves the display side. You still need compatible tiles and styles, plus permission to use your chosen geocoding and routing results the way your product requires. For a smaller project, Geoapify or Stadia Maps seems easier to understand because more of the stack sits under one account. A mixed setup may produce a lower API bill, but it creates more terms and attribution requirements to track.
My comparison sheet would include four questions beyond price: Can results be stored permanently? Can they be displayed on a different map? Is autocomplete priced per keystroke or completed search? What attribution must remain visible? Those answers can eliminate providers faster than comparing free-tier request counts.
Don’t replace all three pieces at once. Move map display first, then put geocoding and routing behind a small internal wrapper so each provider can be swapped or rolled back separately.
For a small team, start by trialing Geoapify or Stadia since they cover the whole stack. Run the replacement beside Google briefly, compare failures and route differences, then cut over one service at a time.
Before you migrate anything, check whether your Google bill is inflated by your own setup. Unrestricted API keys getting scraped, autocomplete billed per keystroke instead of using session tokens, and zero caching will make any provider look expensive. I’ve seen bills drop a lot just from that, and then the migration question changes completely.
That said, @silverminer9208 is right that swapping one all-in-one vendor for another mostly resets the clock on the next price hike. The point everyone’s dancing around is lock-in through your data, not your code. @infinitepulse8131 nailed the real trap: storage and reuse terms. Geoapify and Stadia are fine for a small team that wants one login, but read the geocoding terms on caching before you build anything that saves addresses, because re-geocoding the same customer over and over is how a cheap per-request price quietly turns expensive.
A web dashboard that loads a map now and then bills nothing like a mobile app with the same map baked into an SDK. Once you’re shipping native apps, several providers stop counting requests and start charging per monthly active user instead. That flips the whole cost model, and it’s not something you catch by staring at per-request tables.
So the caching debate @infinitepulse8131 and @opencraft are having is real, but it mostly bites on the server side. On mobile the trap is different: your bill scales with how many people open the app, not how many geocodes they trigger. If your project is heading toward phones, price the SDK tier separately before you fall in love with anyone’s web numbers.
@its_gadget’s swap-one-service-at-a-time approach is the sanest thing in the thread, and it works even better here because mobile tile pricing and web geocoding pricing usually live on different meters anyway. Split them from day one.
Don’t confuse “open source” with “cheap to run.” Pelias plus Valhalla removes per-request fees, but unless your volume is huge, a hosted OSM provider will cost less than the engineer maintaining imports, updates, and servers.