Map Wars: Google Offers Free Access Of Up To $6,800 To Indian Developers

Amid growing competition from local geotech players, Google Maps has said that Indian developers will be able to access its suite of software for “free” for up to $6,800 (over INR 5.7 Lakh) per month, starting March 1, 2025.

In a blogpost, Tina Weyand, senior director of product management at Google Maps, said that local developers will receive “free” access to its offerings such as environment application programming interface (API) and software development kits (SDKs) up to the said monthly limit.

This will replace the fixed $200 monthly credit that Google Maps offers currently. 

“Starting March 1, 2025, developers will get free one access to each of our products – including Maps, Routes, Places, and Environment APIs and SDKs – up to a monthly limit, so they can build more for free. In India, this means that instead of the fixed $200 monthly credit we offer today, developers can soon access up to $6,800 worth of free usage every month, distributed across all products,” added Weyand. 

The big tech major also said that Maps Embed API and Maps SDK will continue to have “unlimited free usage”, adding that the update pricing plans will enable developers to build better solutions and experiment with its APIs and SDKs.

The move is expected to help Google compete better with local players such as MapmyIndia, Ola’s Krutrim, especially on pricing, and woo smaller developers. 

This follows Google, in July this year, slashing the prices of its Google Maps platform and introducing India-specific pricing for Indian developers. Afterwards, the big tech major also announced a collaboration with Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) to offer developers building apps on the state-backed network up to 90% discount on select Google Maps APIs.

Google’s move to cut costs came right after Ola Consumer founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal urged Indian developers to stop using Google Maps. At the time, Aggarwal announced one-year of free access to Ola Maps for all developers on Krutrim platform and over INR 100 Cr in free credits to developers.

Meanwhile, MapmyIndia, too, has been mounting an effective defence against Google Maps.

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