Indian developers Can Access Google for Free up to $6,800

Nitin Konde, Varun Bhardwaj

Dec 12, 2024 — 3 min read

Indian Developers Get $6,800 Free Credit from Google

Google Maps has announced that, from March 1, 2025, Indian developers will get "free" access to its suite of tools for up to $6,800 (more than INR 5.7 lakh) each month, in response to increasing competition from regional geotech companies. Tina Weyand, Google Maps' senior director of product management, stated in a blog post that local developers will get "free" access to the company's products, including software development kits (SDKs) and environment application programming interfaces (APIs), up to the specified monthly cap.

Google Maps' existing fixed $200 monthly credit will be replaced by a newly announced pay structure. Developers will be able to create more for free after March 1, 2025, when they will have one month's worth of free access to all of Google's products, including the Maps, Routes, Places, and Environment APIs and SDKs. According to Weyand, this implies that developers in India would soon have access to up to $6,800 in free usage per month, spread across all products, in place of the company's current fixed $200 monthly credit.

Unlimited Free Usage For Maps Embed API and Maps SDK

Maps Embed API and Maps SDK will continue to offer "unlimited free usage," according to tech giant Google. Additionally, the updated pricing plans will allow developers to develop more effective solutions and experiment with the APIs and SDKs. It is anticipated that this approach will help Google better compete with regional firms like MapmyIndia and Ola's Krutrim, particularly in terms of pricing, and will attract smaller developers. This comes after Google reduced the cost of its Maps platform in July of this year and introduced new pricing for Indian developers that is specifically altered for India. A partnership with Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) was then revealed by the giant tech company, which will provide developers creating apps on the state-backed network with up to 90% off on specific Google Maps APIs.

Google Forming New Strategies to Remain Ahead in the Race

Google's cost-cutting action followed Bhavish Aggarwal, the founder and CEO of Ola Consumer, urging Indian developers to abandon Google Maps. Aggarwal announced at the time that all developers on the Krutrim platform would have free access to Ola Maps for a year and that developers would receive more than INR 100 Cr in free credits. In the meantime, MapmyIndia has also been putting up a strong fight against Google Maps.

Google Maps launched a number of India-specific features earlier this year, such as flyovers, narrow road callouts, and Address Descriptors, which allow users to accurately pinpoint a location inside intricate city road networks. Google has launched Gemini AI in Docs, which is a related development. Compared to competing AI models, it can more clearly generate photo-realistic images of people, landscapes, and animals with only text cues. Gemini AI may be effectively used by users to upload full-bleed photos that fill a document's page. Additionally, it can be used to produce inline visuals for promotional flyers, marketing campaign briefs, and digital restaurant menus.