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barronrandall
Community Member

Experiencing new Google API pricing challenges? Comment here!

Hey everyone, just wanted to get the lowdown from the rest of you on the new pricing changes Google implemented July 16. They've greatly increased the pricing and I just finished building a Google API intensive web app that features geolocation and the constant updating of the user's location on the app and updating distances to different businesses.

The bill for one day of development and testing was $700! They've increased pricing 1400%!

I can imagine other businesses are getting some shocking bills right around now. I don't know how a business that isn't a large corporation could afford this frankly. Has anyone else run into this?

7 REPLIES 7
mtoqeer123
Community Member

yeah exactly.

Recently I have also completed a Project "Store Locator".

Faced Same Problem. 

Yikes! I've been meaning to check out the new pricing as it will probably affect me in the future. I didn't realise it was so bad. 

 

Do you do your testing with a client's account, or do you have to pay the fees yourself?

 

I'm afraid this may be something we can expect more of in the future, as Google and other companies try to monetize services they've been providing free or cheap.


@Richard W wrote:

I'm afraid this may be something we can expect more of in the future, as Google and other companies try to monetize services they've been providing free or cheap.


 In fairness, they're just starting to recoup the many, many Billions they pour into sourcing, verifying and entering all that data into the graph.... I once tried to estimate roughly how much JUST  "Streetview" cost to create. I gave up because the number of zeros became terrifying.

Thanks for the replies.

 

Yes the client is getting the bill, he is already in contact with Google.  We were doing some heavy testing that day and everything worked and in the process of handing over the project when someone decided to look at the charges.

Client is pretty freaked out having spent a lot of money developing this app, and now it may not even be feasible. He's thinking about the next step, if in fact there is a next step....


As Petra said, Alphabet has spent billions.  Your client is developing an APP to make money.  $700 is cheap if they want to start raking money selling the APP.

What you and Petra don't seem to understand is they're pricing themselves out for anyone other than large corporate entitites. $700 for one day of testing would indicate the usage rates while being used in  productions would be much higher. Client would have to pass the costs on to the customer, which would make it unaffordable to the user and hence, no money made.

 

I know Google is struggling mightily, not having been able to find a way to monetize their products and service....oh no wait, I just checked and Google is one of the richest and most powerful companies in the world with over 100 billion in revenue in 2017, and a monopoly to boot.


@Randall B wrote:

What you and Petra don't seem to understand is they're pricing themselves out for anyone other than large corporate entitites. $700 for one day of testing would indicate the usage rates while being used in  productions would be much higher. Client would have to pass the costs on to the customer, which would make it unaffordable to the user and hence, no money made.

 

I know Google is struggling mightily, not having been able to find a way to monetize their products and service...


 No that is your opinion - Not fact and here is my opinion (not a fact).  Based on the MO of Google their pricing for most of the stuff they make money on is traffic driven. Their marketing dept. must have the data and decided that if something drives this much traffic it must be worth XX to them.  They just want a piece of that XX.  If the APP ou are working is worth nothing to other people, no  traffic and the price would not be $700/day.

 

How I know this?  There hundreds of thousands of APPs and most of them are useless.