Android Geocoder quota limits

android google-maps geocode
Patrick picture Patrick · Nov 21, 2011 · Viewed 11.1k times · Source

Could someone advise on the quota limits to Google maps geocoding api? I'm using geocoding on android. The Google maps Api site states the limit is 2,500 per day. Is this total for the API key? or per IP address? I have found this article: http://code.google.com/apis/maps/articles/geocodestrat.html#quota-limits

which states that the quota limit is tied to the ip address, however this is referring to websites. Can anyone answer this? Obviously this is a huge difference and 2,500 geocode lookups per day per device would be enough for most applications.

Answer

Blundell picture Blundell · Jul 22, 2013

There is no hard limit for the Android Geocode API

I contacted the Developer Support

Asking:

With the new app we are writing, we have a map of 10 houses and we have to look up the Lat Long from the Postcode for each.

We use:

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/location/Geocoder.html#getFromLocationName(java.lang.String, int)

However, the customer is now asking about limits of the API. I've had a look around online but I can't find any concrete evidence.

I've heard it would be 2500 requests per IP address per 24 hours.

Some people are getting the Javascript Geocoder mixed up with the Android Geocoder, so this question is specifically Android.

I made a loop that hits the getFromLocationName more than 2500 times and it would return me data anyway. Caching maybe. I sometimes get an IOException, intermittently. I've assumed this is something to do with the backing LocationProviders and I would also get the IOException if I ever hit this mythical limit?

Could you bring some clarity to my ramblings or know someone who could?

Regards

Paul

And got this reply:

Paul,

This API is designed for reasonable use by client applications. It is actively monitored for abuse (e.g. requests per second), but you should not have an any issues with the use case you have described.

I am not sure how your application is structured, but it might be more efficient to do the geocoding once on the server-side, rather than on every device individually.

Thanks, Jan-Felix

fyi: (we also save these lookups in a database on the local device once done so they don't need doing again)

Therefore there is no hard limit on the the Android GeoCode API useage, more just a fair useage policy per device (client)

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