Google is making noise in the Geo Community this week with details of a charge for use of their popular Maps API (used by some 350,000 Geo devs around teh World) . So, what does this mean? Well, for basic mapping sites business will be as usual for the most part, however, for power users there’s some new considerations as well as some new, supporting resources available to you. Indeed I have to applaud James Fee who first posted some of his thoughts on this topic. James comments how the forever free model has done much dis-service to the industry, quashing what should have been viable business models that were in place by the likes of DeCarta and others. See James’ blog post Google Charging for Google Maps API Access? So What?
To help manage and monitor usage Google has setup the API Console (account holders) – coming soon. Developers can track usage in the APIs Console by providing an APIs Console key when you load the Maps API
For power users, Google has the Maps API Premier resource – Quickly implement interactive Google Maps API Premier and have an application that is optimized for both desktop and mobile web. So, what are the limits?? Web sites and applications using each of the Maps API may at no cost generate:
- up to 25,000 map loads per day for each API
- up to 2,500 map loads per day that have been modified using the Styled Maps feature
If your application exceeds these usage limits you must respond in one of the following ways in order to continue using the Maps API in your application:
- Modify your Maps API application such that the number of map loads generated per day is below the usage limit for each API that your application uses;
- Enroll for automated billing of excess map loads; or
- Purchase a Maps API Premier license
For more detiails on this topic See Google Implements Usage Limits on the Google Maps API – no more free lunch