I'm unhappy with Google Maps Platform pricing for high-volume geocoding

If you’re unhappy with Google Maps Platform pricing for high-volume geocoding, there are a few practical paths depending on what you need:

1) Use a lower-cost geocoding provider

Common alternatives include:

• Mapbox Geocoding
• HERE Geocoding
• TomTom
• Geoapify
• LocationIQ
• OpenCage

These often have cheaper tiers or more flexible pricing, though coverage, accuracy, and rate limits vary.

2) Move to self-hosted / open-source geocoding

If your volume is very high, self-hosting can be much cheaper at scale:

• Nominatim (OpenStreetMap-based)
• Pelias
• Photon

Tradeoffs:

• More ops/maintenance
• Data freshness and quality depend on your setup
• You’ll need to manage scaling, indexing, and caching

3) Reduce billable geocoding volume

If you stick with a paid API, you can often cut costs by:

• Caching results aggressively
• Deduplicating addresses before geocoding
• Normalizing addresses to improve cache hits
• Geocoding only when needed, not on every user action
• Storing lat/lng permanently after first lookup

4) Hybrid approach

A common pattern is:

• Use self-hosted or cheaper provider for bulk/background geocoding
• Use premium API only for edge cases or low-confidence matches

5) Re-evaluate whether you need forward geocoding

If your data already contains structured location info, sometimes you can:

• Use postal code centroids
• Use city/state centroids
• Use your own address matching logic before calling an API

If you want, I can help you compare alternatives based on:

• your country/region coverage needs,
• monthly geocode volume,
• required accuracy,
• and whether you need batch geocoding, autocomplete, or reverse geocoding.