Usage and billing

This section outlines the usage and billing details available across the Google Maps Platform AI products.

Maps Code Assist

There's no charge for using Maps Code Assist while it's in the Experimental stage.

Maps Experience agent tools

With the Google Maps Platform pay-as-you-go pricing model, usage of Maps Experience agent tools (formerly Maps Grounding Lite) is calculated for each request, where each request represents one billing event. Usage is tracked for each product SKU. Your bill shows a line item for each SKU in addition to your total charges. For more information, see the Reporting overview.

• Requests that don't use any Pro options are billed under the Maps Grounding Essentials SKU. Requests that use a Pro option are billed under the Maps Grounding Pro SKU instead. Each request is billed under one SKU. For the capabilities and options that determine the SKU, see What's billed under the Pro SKU.
• See the Main pricing table and India pricing table for pricing details.
• The Maps Grounding Essentials SKU is also offered through the Essentials and Pro Subscribe to save packages, and the Maps Grounding Pro SKU is offered through the Pro package.
• Requests to the Resolution API (resolve_names and resolve_maps_urls in MCP, or resolveNames and resolveMapsUrls in REST) are billed at no charge under the Places API Text Search Essentials (IDs Only) SKU.

Agentic data visualization token

With the agentic data visualization token (Preview), you can display the places from a search_places or search_along_route (or searchText or searchAlongRoute in REST) response with Places UI Kit at no additional cost:

• You pay for the search_places or search_along_route (or searchText or searchAlongRoute) request at its standard rate.
• Places UI Kit requests that pass token validation aren't billed.
• Places UI Kit requests that don't pass token validation are billed at the standard rate for the Places UI Kit Query or Places UI Kit Pro (Advanced) SKU.

Maps in Google AI Studio

When building in AI Studio, your project uses an automatically provisioned Maps Demo Key stored securely in your app's secrets settings:

• No credit card or Google Cloud billing account is required.
• If you already have an existing Google Cloud billing account, you continue to use the standard Google Maps Platform monthly usage thresholds at no charge.

Agent skills

Agent skills help optimize and reduce your token costs. Conventional AI integrations often load large amounts of documentation upfront, which consumes significant tokens and increases session costs. Agent skills use progressive disclosure to minimize overhead—they scan brief metadata to see if a skill is relevant, and only load detailed instructions when the agent determines they're necessary for your specific task.