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Google Places API Alternative: Place Data Priced per Call

1 Oct 2026Perceptlayer8 min read

If you need place data as JSON (name, address, phone, rating, review count, coordinates) and don't need to draw it on a Google map, per-call place data is an alternative to the Places API with a simpler billing model. Perceptlayer's Google Maps API returns those fields for a flat 1 credit per call, so 1,000 calls cost 1,000 credits, where Google bills per SKU. Pricing shows what credits cost, so you can compare against your own volume. If your app shows results on a Google map or must stay inside Google's terms, the official API is the better fit.

What does the Places API cost, and what is the alternative?

Google's Places API (New) pricing charges per SKU, per 1,000 requests, with a monthly free cap on each. As of October 2026, Text Search Pro is $32.00 and Text Search Enterprise is $35.00 per 1,000 for the first tier. Place Details runs $5.00 (Essentials), $17.00 (Pro) and $20.00 (Enterprise). The alternative is a flat cost per call: one credit, whatever fields come back.

That difference in billing model matters more than the headline rate. With Google, you choose the data you want and the request lands in a SKU. With per-call data, you call simple-search or business-details and pay the credits shown on the endpoint, which is 1 for every Google Maps endpoint in our catalogue.

Perceptlayer collects its data from publicly available sources and returns it as found at the time of the call. Keep that in mind when you read the table below.

How do the costs compare per 1,000 lookups?

Per 1,000 lookups past the free tier, the official API ranges from $5.00 to $35.00 for the first pricing tier. Per-call place data is 1,000 credits for the same count. The two bill in different units, dollars per SKU against credits per call, so this table sets out each side's own rate and doesn't convert one into the other. Pricing lists what credits cost.

Free monthly allowances are separate:

Google figures are the first pricing tier from Google's pricing page, read in October 2026. Credits come in packs of 10,000 (Starter), 50,000 (Build), 200,000 (Growth), 500,000 (Pro), 1,000,000 (Scale) and 5,000,000 (Volume), and every pack uses the same 1 credit per call here. What credits cost is on the pricing page. Purchased credits last 12 months, with no subscription. Starter through Pro include 5 requests a second, Scale 10 and Volume 20; see rate limits.

A worked example: 10,000 lookups a month

At Google's Text Search Pro rate, 10,000 requests minus the 5,000 free leaves 5,000 billable: 5,000 × $32.00 / 1,000 = $160.00. For Place Details Pro, the same arithmetic gives 5,000 × $17.00 / 1,000 = $85.00.

On Perceptlayer, 10,000 calls × 1 credit = 10,000 credits; see pricing for what credits cost. That equals the Starter pack's size, and the 1,000 free credits you get each month count toward it.

Bigger jobs use the same 1 credit per call; pricing shows what each pack costs. 500,000 calls × 1 credit = 500,000 credits, which is the Pro pack's size. Google's $32.00 rate applies to the first 100,000 events a month, and its page lists lower rates for higher tiers, so price large volumes there directly.

What does a per-call place record look like?

One call to GET /v1/google-maps/simple-search returns a list of places with name, rating, address, coordinates and identifiers. Here's the request for restaurants in New York, then an excerpt of the recorded response.

curl "https://api.perceptlayer.com/v1/google-maps/simple-search?query=restaurants+in+new+york" \
  -H "X-API-Key: $API_KEY"

{
  "items": [
    {
      "name": "Altair Restaurant NYC",
      "review_count": 1225,
      "rating": 4.8,
      "website": "https://www.altairnyc.com/",
      "domain": "altairnyc.com",
      "latitude": 40.7556565,
      "longitude": -73.9936282,
      "business_id": "0x89c2591598891521:0x4ebcde18610e64",
      "subtypes": [
        "New American restaurant",
        "Restaurant"
      ],
      "full_address": "351 W 38th St, New York, NY 10018, United States",
      "timezone": "America/New_York",
      "phone_numbers": [
        "+1 929-561-6131"
      ],
      "place_id": "ChIJIRWJmBVZwokRZA5hGN68TgA=",
      …
      "city": "New York",
      "zip_code": "10018",
      "state": "New York",
      "country_code": "US",
      …
    },
    …
  ],
  "pagination": {
    "current_page": 0,
    "total_results": 173,
    "has_more": false
  }
}

The record also holds subtypes, photos_sample and an attributes object (the sample shows wheelchair accessibility). You can narrow the response with the fields parameter and set the language and region with hl and gl. The endpoint pages list the rest: Business Details, Photos and Autocomplete.

Which Places fields are missing from the simple-search response?

The recorded simple-search response has no opening hours, price level or business status. If your app reads those from Places, check them before you migrate. The table compares fields people commonly read from Places with the recorded response above; Places field names are Google's.

"Not in the recorded response" means the fields were absent from that one recording, not that no endpoint carries them. Run business-details for a place you know and check, since this post doesn't show its response. The recording also holds fields Places doesn't name the same way, such as owner_name, order_link, timezone, district and google_mid.

Which endpoints replace which Places calls?

The mapping is by job, not by name, and it's not one-to-one. Use this as a starting point.

Note the identifier: the Perceptlayer endpoints that take a place use business_id, which the search response returns alongside place_id.

Can I get reviews the same way?

Yes. GET /v1/google-maps/reviews takes a business_id and returns reviews as JSON, one credit per call. Parameters include sort, search, limit, page and pages. This is a different shape from Google's place details, where reviews arrive as part of the place record.

curl "https://api.perceptlayer.com/v1/google-maps/reviews?business_id=0x60188b88b7d8f7ab%3A0x2133080e9923eaac" \
  -H "X-API-Key: $API_KEY"

An excerpt of the recorded response, with the reviewer fields left out:

{
  "items": [
    {
      "review_source": "Google",
      "rating": 5,
      "timestamp": 1779471094452,
      "author_review_count": 262,
      "review_text": [
        "A must do! Easy access via Yamanote line > Shibuya > exit Hachiko exit and walk to the 41 or 42 bus (suica card OK) then four stops to Sugekari Elem Sch > once …"
      ],
      "review_language": [
        "en"
      ],
      "is_google_review": true,
      …
    },
    …
  ],
  "nextPage": "CjEIARIpCgoAP7_LADY2____EhBrFsVuDgXaYeq0lg4AAAAAGgn92PQCY8g0lvwYACIA"
}

Pass the nextPage value back as page to fetch the next batch. For every parameter and the cost of paging through a large review set, see Google Maps Reviews API: Parameters, Requests and Cost.

When does the official Places API fit better?

Use the official API when your product draws results on a Google map, when your legal team needs Google's terms rather than a third party's, or when you only need a small number of lookups inside the free caps. Google's Places API policies state that results displayed on a map must be shown on a Google Map with proper attribution.

The same page restricts pre-fetching, caching and storing Places content beyond its exceptions, and says place IDs can be stored indefinitely. If you need a dataset you keep and process in your own database, read those rules against your plan.

Here is a plain verdict per use case:

Data from publicly available sources is returned as found at the time of the call. If you need guaranteed freshness, that points to the official API as well.

How do I try it?

Get a free key on sign-up: 1,000 free credits every month after you verify an email address, no credit card. Send the key in the X-API-Key header, run the simple-search call above, or open the Google Maps API page and run it in the playground. Authentication details are in the docs.

A few operational facts help when you size a job. A successful response carries X-Credits-Used and X-Credits-Remaining. Failed calls cost nothing and return X-Credits-Used: 0. A 429 or 503 carries a Retry-After header. There's no idempotency key, so a request whose reply was lost may have succeeded and been billed. The credits and errors sections cover each case.

For the wider Google Maps picture, see Google Maps Business Data API: Search Places as JSON. Next step: run one simple-search call for your own city and compare the fields to what your app needs.

google mapsplaces apipricingplace datalocal business data