Geocoding costs got you down…? Mapricot may be exactly what you need

If you’ve ever built something that puts a pin on a map, you know the bill arrives whether you planned for it or not. And Brad Simantel found that frustrating. So he built Mapricot to help everyone. It’s a location API — geocoding, place search, routing, and IP geolocation — built on open data. And it promises to reduce your spend on geocoding.

Nearly all the map data you need is open and free to use, but providers like Google and Mapbox still charge steep prices to access it.

Google charges $5.00 per 1,000 requests to geocode, and wants a card on file before you make one. Mapbox charges for every map load after the first 50,000 a month, and extra to store your results. Other providers sell monthly plans, so you pay a flat rate whether you use the requests or not.

Mapricot’s own pitch is that it’s “the most affordable map and geocoding API.” The first 250,000 requests every 30 days are free. With no card needed to sign up. After that, it’s $0.10 per 1,000 requests, drawn from prepaid credits in $25 increments. No contract. No subscription. And map tiles are free.

There are official SDKs for JavaScript, Python, Ruby, PHP, and Go.

For more information or to sign up, visit Mapricot.