Google Maps API - Pricing (How it works)?

Hello.

I'm planning to build a project that uses the Google Maps API, specifically the Places API.

Going through their webSite i saw the prices which are pretty high, but at the bottom of the page it says: "Gaming Solutions - 10 per DAU (Daily Active Users)"

https://cloud.google.com/maps-platform/pricing

So i wonder, if i want to make a game that request information from Google Places, would i have to pay per request, or per Daily Active User? According to their prices, for example if i want to request the current place based on the phone location, i will have to pay $30 per 1000 requests, which is way too much, but if i pay per DAU, then it won't depend how many times the user is requesting it's location...

Does anyone have experience with their platform and how the pricing works?

Also if i'll have to pay per DAU, how would google's platform know, that i'm requesting the information from a mobile game and not from some app? Expecially if i'm using some plug-in for Unity to access the maps API?

I wrote to their support, but as always the respond was outstanding... Some random information, without answer to my actual question...

Thanks in advance.

 

Everyone keeps looking at Google Maps but no one seems to be considering Microsoft Azure Maps which has far more reasonable pricing in my opinion. For low volume accesses it's only $0.50 per 1,000 transactions after the hundreds of thousands of transactions you receive free every month.

If you want to see the capabilities of Microsoft Azure Maps you only need look at the new Microsoft Flight Simulator. It's getting all of its world data from their cloud services.

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/azure-maps/

 

Actually i was looking at MapBox, which have pretty good SDK for Unity as well, but the problem here is that i need to get data for the ratings (Or some kind of popularity data) of the Points of Interests, which i'm not sure the other Maps API's than Google support.

Other than that MapBox have pretty lower prices as well and few thousands requests for free every month...

I was just wondering about the pricing of Google...
I'll check the Azure Maps, for ratings and popuparity data for the POI's.

thanks

 

Hi, I can not help you much because I don't remember but nearly somewhat 1.5 years back, I used both Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Maps API. Because I was building a weather app in Android Studio and I needed Auto Completion API, Geocoding, Reverse Geocoding API etc. Though I don't remember exact prices and exact features but what I remember is that, I first gave a try to Microsoft Azure and then I was not satisfied (Again I don't remember now the reason but only result) and I switched to Google APIs. May be I found Google APIs easy, may be having more features, or may be price. But End Result is, I decided to go for Google Maps API and never went back to Microsoft Azure.
PS: At time of deciding, I considered all factors i.e. price, easiness, features etc. So I don't remember the decision factor but the end result.

 

[I EDITED THE MESSAGE IN CASE YOU READ IT IN YOUR INBOX]


I'm currently using the Google Maps API for Unity , which, btw, was released this June.
I suggest to use Open Street Maps. It's open source, it's used by lots of people.

If you still want to use GMaps, you will have to use the "Semantic Tiles API", none of the other apis, which work with REST and are not integrated with Unity (I'm not 100% sure). They recommend using Semantic Tile API and there is another api for Unity about Playable Maps, or something like that.

If you want to use Places API... that's not integrated. But some colleagues were trying to use the Elevation API to get heights in the maps and they have to use REST petitions... no idea if that works, still working on that.

What you are meant to be using is just the "Gaming Services" APIS (those two).

Semantic Tiles API needs to have less than :

Tile requests per minute
60.000

Tile requests per user per minute
6.000

Which is a lot. But if you plan on having a game that many people could be using all the time... then it could be a problem. But most of the apps work with these very good without having to pay anything or maybe a little money.
The problem with the Semantic Tile API is that you can't really setup the petitions to the cloud, so it downloads nearly everything. You can filter by "public or private road" and maybe disable downloading "modelled buidings" from the petitions. But I haven't been able to reduce it that much.
Downloading the map of the example in which you get the map and buildings of the Liberty Statue in USA would take around 30 petitions. Just that.

 

The thing is i want to find POI's and their ratings. Google is the only provider that does that well. TomTom maps provide ratings for the POI's, but only certain categories have rating and others don't. For example there is no rating for Tourist Attractions...

The problem with using Google is the pricing. 1000 Requests is $17 + $5 for atmospheric data where the Ratings are, which (If the project is successful) is a lot...

I'll keep digging for other POI API providers i guess...

thanks

 

I recently found out about one such provider called HERE Maps that seems to have pretty good pricing plans.

No integration with Unity though, but you can use its web API to get location details instead.

 

Hey thanks, i'll take a look at it...

cheers

 

Hi...but MapBox doesn't charge scripts: abstract map, for example

 

Hi Dark...¿How do you do to working with open street map? I was doing ti with MapBox and the scripts don't charge very good. I used Blender-OSM, and It works on Blender but I tried to import in format .obj to Unity and doesn't works...

 

Hi everyone...¿How do you do to working with open street map? I was doing ti with MapBox and the scripts don't charge very good. I used Blender-OSM, and It works on Blender but I tried to import in format .obj to Unity and doesn't works... ...I am reading pricing on Google Maps, but I don´t understand ¿credit free $200 USD?

 

If you are interested in OSM to Unity at design time in the Unity Editor then I can recommend CityGen3D - although I'm biased, obviously

 

hmmm US$130...Do you guaranteed your product? I would like to know advantages

 

CityGen3D is in all-in-one solution for procedural scene generation automatically creating terrain, buildings & roads from real world map data, or from custom maps using the 2D map editor.
Our website has more info on current features and what's planned for future updates, and some videos.
There's also this Unity forum thread (and this older thread from the Beta).
Feel free to send me a message here if you have any further questions, I'll be happy to help.

 

Google Maps SDK is a solid SDK now. Since they released it back in June, it has been available for free for developers to use and try out.

First of all, you can get a 90 day free trial if you are new to the Google Developer Console. Thereafter, you get $200 USD in credit per month. They say that up to 20,000 daily active users per month will equate to $200. Afterwards, you are charged $10 per 1000 daily active users for the first 1,500,000 DAUs and then $8 per 1000 DAUs thereafter with a note to contact sales for volume discounts over 7,500,001+.

Refer to the explanation at the bottom of the page in this link for more info.

I have just made a basic tutorial on getting setup with the Google SDK here for anyone who wants to get setup fast. I will write another tutorial which goes deeper into the functionality of the SDK soon.

BTW, I have no reason to support Google over any other brand aside from my development experience. I really didn't like Mapbox. It's very outdated, lacking data, and the support is almost non-existent.