Google Maps API fees

  • Hey all,


    Not strictly Perch related but I believe many Perchers use Google maps on their sites... Has anyone started encountering massive charges for the Google Map API usage? I have a couple of Runway sites using a jquery Google maps storelocator & loads of Perch sites using basic location maps. Now the introductory discounts have run out & usage is exceeding the free tier, I have to start hitting up clients cap in hand!


    Other than disabling maps altogether, I can limit quotas but this would break functionality some of the time & damage overall UX. I know Google warned that the days of free maps API usage was up last year but it wasn’t clear or easy to gauge how long we’d be able coast along under the free tier radar.


    I considered setting up separate billing accounts for each client project and inviting them to enter their card details to pay the monthly fees directly. Or billing them manually once a year (I'd be billing for hosting anyway). It would be nice however if Google offered developers a reseller's commission for all this additional revenue we're sending their way and now have to sell future clients on!


    Wonder if I can / should set up a new Google cloud account for each client & generate a new API key for their project in this account? They might then benefit from the full free tier ($200), rather than it being spread out across all the projects in my account. There's a bit of work in this & I'm not even sure if it would work.


    I haven't looked into alternatives such as Openstreetmap yet, so I'm not even sure if storelocator type functionality is possible. Sorry for the long rant, just wondering if any other perchers have been hit with this yet and if you have, what approach you took - thanks!

  • drewm

    Approved the thread.
  • From what I can gather, each map load is charged at something like .8c & you're charged for everything after you hit the $200 mark, each project receiving the free tier discount proportional to the number of overall hits in your account - does that make sense? & yes, you get the $200 free tier each month.


    They also included an introductory promotion of $250 (I think!), which is what I've now used up.

  • Thanks Ashafer & Drew, leafletjs looks promising, I'll keep it in mind for future projects!


    I wouldn't know where to start with writing a different front end for the maps field type - any pointers Drew? Sounds it might be beyond my current capabilities, but always happy to consider a challenge!

  • I wouldn't know where to start with writing a different front end for the maps field type - any pointers Drew?

    The map field type spits out a data structure with the lat and long for each point on the map, so it should be a case of taking the hello world example from any of these things you want to use and just patching in that data. Unless I'm forgetting some complexities, it should be beginner-level stuff.