Plaza vs Google Maps
This isn’t an opinion piece. Here’s what each API does, what it costs, and where it’s better.
We put Plaza and Google Maps Platform side by side across every endpoint category and ran the pricing math at three different volumes. The results are below.
Feature comparison
Section titled “Feature comparison”| Feature | Plaza | Google Maps |
|---|---|---|
| Forward geocoding | /geocode | Geocoding API |
| Reverse geocoding | /geocode/reverse | Geocoding API |
| Autocomplete | /geocode/autocomplete | Places Autocomplete |
| Batch geocoding | /geocode/batch | No (must loop single requests) |
| Routing / directions | /route | Directions API |
| Isochrones | /isochrone | No |
| Distance matrix | /matrix | Distance Matrix API |
| Map matching | /map-match | Roads API |
| Route optimization | /optimize (up to 100 stops) | Routes API (waypoint optimization, 25 stops max) |
| Full-text search | /search | Places Text Search |
| Elevation | /elevation | Elevation API |
| PlazaQL | /query | No |
| Vector tiles | /tiles/{z}/{x}/{y} | Map Tiles API |
| Custom datasets | /datasets | No |
| MCP server for AI | @plazafyi/mcp | No |
| Street View | No | Yes |
| Real-time traffic | No | Yes |
| Business reviews/photos | No | Yes (Places API) |
| Transit directions | No | Yes |
Plaza covers 15 of the 19 categories. Google covers 14. The overlap is large, but each platform has exclusive capabilities the other lacks entirely.
Plaza’s exclusive features lean toward developer infrastructure: PlazaQL for arbitrary spatial queries, custom datasets, and an MCP server for AI agents. Under the hood, Plaza uses an H3 hexagonal indexing system (contributed to open source) that makes it possible to query billions of geospatial features without the fleet of specialized services other providers require. Google’s exclusive features lean toward consumer-facing applications: Street View imagery, real-time traffic from billions of Android phones, business reviews and photos, and transit directions with live schedules.
Pricing comparison
Section titled “Pricing comparison”Google Maps Platform bills per SKU. Each API call type has a separate price, and the costs add up across endpoints. Plaza uses flat monthly plans with included request allocations. Premium endpoints (routing, isochrone, distance matrix) count as 4x against your allocation.
Here’s the published pricing for the most common endpoints:
| Endpoint type | Google Maps (per 1K) | Plaza standard (per 1K overage) | Plaza premium (per 1K overage) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Geocoding | $5.00 | $0.50 | — |
| Directions (basic) | $5.00–$10.00 | — | $1.50 |
| Directions (advanced) | $20.00 | — | $1.50 |
| Distance Matrix | $5.00–$10.00 | — | $1.50 |
| Places Nearby Search | $32.00 | — | — |
| Places Text Search | $32.00 | $0.50 | — |
| Places Details | $17.00 | $0.50 | — |
| Elevation | $5.00 | $0.50 | — |
Google offers a $200/month free credit. Plaza’s free tier gives you 500 standard requests/day + 10 premium requests/day for $0, no credit card required. Paid plans start at $50/month.
Scenario 1: 100K geocoding requests/month
Section titled “Scenario 1: 100K geocoding requests/month”Google: 100,000 x $5.00/1K = $500. Minus $200 credit = $300/mo.
Plaza: Pro 100K plan = $50/mo.
Scenario 2: 100K mixed requests (50K geocoding + 30K routing + 20K search)
Section titled “Scenario 2: 100K mixed requests (50K geocoding + 30K routing + 20K search)”Google: (50K x $5) + (30K x $10) + (20K x $32) = $250 + $300 + $640 = $1,190. Minus $200 credit = $990/mo.
Plaza: 50K standard + 30K premium (x4 = 120K effective) + 20K standard = 190K effective requests. Pro 300K plan = $150/mo.
Scenario 3: 1M geocoding requests/month
Section titled “Scenario 3: 1M geocoding requests/month”Google: 1,000,000 x $5.00/1K = $5,000. Minus $200 credit = $4,800/mo.
Plaza: Pro 1M plan = $500/mo.
At every volume we tested, Plaza costs between 6x and 10x less than Google Maps Platform for equivalent API calls. The gap widens with mixed workloads because Google’s most expensive SKUs (Places Search at $32/1K) have no equivalent premium multiplier on Plaza.
Data rights
Section titled “Data rights”Google’s Terms of Service prohibit caching API responses, storing results in your database, displaying data on non-Google maps, and using results in ML pipelines. Plaza is built on open data — OpenStreetMap (ODbL-licensed) plus curated open datasets — with none of these restrictions. Cache freely, store permanently, display anywhere.
| Plaza | Google Maps | |
|---|---|---|
| Cache results | Yes | No (session-length only) |
| Store in your database | Yes | No |
| Display on non-Google maps | Yes | No |
| Use in AI training data | Yes | No |
| Store in vector DB for RAG | Yes | No |
| Bulk export | Yes | No |
Developer experience
Section titled “Developer experience”Plaza serves every endpoint from a single base URL (https://plaza.fyi/api/v1/) and returns GeoJSON for all responses. Google Maps Platform has separate base URLs, authentication schemes, and response formats for each API family. Geocoding returns one JSON structure, Places returns another, Directions returns a third.
Plaza ships 10 SDKs — TypeScript, Python, Go, and more — all generated with Stainless, so they stay in sync with the API spec and provide full type safety. Google provides official client libraries for JavaScript, Android, and iOS, plus raw REST access for everything else.
Rate limits on Plaza scale with your plan: 10 req/min on Free, 300 on Pro 100K, 1,000 on Pro 300K, 2,000 on Pro 1M, and 10,000 on Enterprise. One number, applied uniformly. Google enforces per-API quotas with different limits per SKU, and the defaults vary by billing account age and history.
AI readiness
Section titled “AI readiness”Plaza ships an MCP server (@plazafyi/mcp) that gives any compatible AI agent direct access to geocoding, routing, search, and PlazaQL. An LLM can generate a PlazaQL query, execute it against Plaza’s full dataset, and process the results. Agents can cache and reuse results across sessions.
Google Maps Platform has no MCP server and no function-calling tooling. Every agent invocation is a fresh billable call with no ability to persist the result.
Where Google Maps wins
Section titled “Where Google Maps wins”Google Maps Platform has real advantages that Plaza does not replicate.
Real-time traffic. Google collects live traffic data from billions of Android devices. Their ETAs in congested urban corridors are more accurate than any routing engine that relies on historical or static speed data. If your product is a consumer navigation app where ETA accuracy in rush-hour traffic is the core feature, Google’s data moat is real.
Business listings. Google’s Places database includes business hours, user reviews, photos, price levels, and structured metadata for hundreds of millions of businesses worldwide. Plaza has extensive POI data from OpenStreetMap and other open sources, but it doesn’t have Yelp-style reviews or user-submitted photos. If your application needs “show me the 4-star Italian restaurants open right now with photos,” Google is the better data source.
Street View. Panoramic street-level imagery covering most of the world’s road network. Plaza has no imagery product.
Transit directions. Google aggregates real-time transit schedules from thousands of agencies globally. Their transit routing includes live delay information, transfers, and fare estimates. Plaza does not offer transit directions.
Mobile SDKs. Google’s Android and iOS SDKs are deeply integrated with native map rendering, gesture handling, and platform-specific optimizations built over more than a decade. If you’re building a mobile-first consumer maps experience, Google’s client-side SDK ecosystem is more mature.
If your product depends on any of these capabilities, Google Maps is still the right choice for those specific features. Many teams use both: Google for consumer-facing traffic and business data, Plaza for backend geocoding, spatial queries, and data pipelines where cost and flexibility matter most.
Get started
Section titled “Get started”Plaza’s free tier includes 500 standard requests/day + 10 premium requests/day for $0, covers every endpoint in the table above, and requires no credit card.