Our experience with the Google cost increase was similar. We were paying around $550/mo for the GMaps Platform pre-price-change. Over 80% of this cost was for d

Our experience with the Google cost increase was similar. We were paying around $550/mo for the GMaps Platform pre-price-change. Over 80% of this cost was for dynamic maps usage. The rest was for use of the Google Places API. When I got the notification in May that the rates were increasing, I didn't take it that seriously. We have a profitable company and I would have been more than happy to pay Google twice their rate for the premium services they offer. Nobody ever expects a sudden rate increase to be more than 20%, 30% or 40%, right???! It was in July that the gravity of the situation hit me. I was seeing tweets and articles lamenting the rate increase. I thought to myself "huh, I better check this out". I did some quick math using the new rate card and nearly had a heart attack! Our bill was estimated to be ~$14,500 and the CLOCK WAS TICKING. We were facing a 2600% rate increase and had only 2 months to figure out a game plan. Our business was on the line! I immediately determined that we were eligible for bulk pricing. However, Google will not sell you the bulk rates directly. You have to contract with an authorized 3rd party (re-seller, basically) to get the rates. So, we found a reseller and locked in the bulk rates. That brought our estimate down to around $12,000/mo. Better, but still a huge shock. The next step was optimization. There was no way for us to reduce dynamic maps usage because it is such a core part of our products. So, we cut off almost all of our Places API usage and started using other services. Our estimated bill was now down to $9,000. That's where we are today. We just got our first full month bill. It was a huge hit to our business, wiping out a significant portion of our profitability. To be frank, I am pissed about this. I was more than happy to pay Google far more than they were charging us. We were always under the impression that rates would increase one day. But, to force an increase of this magnitude with such a short amount of lead time is pretty f&^%ing sh*&$tty coming from a billion dollar giant. We're starting to test other mapping services. I met with a team member from Mapbox last week and am planning on testing their platform in December. Their quote for our usage needs? $550/mo.