Open Places API 
Own the results.
Built on permissively licensed Overture Places data. Cache results, store them, redistribute them, and mix them with your own records without a vendor take-back clause.
An open-data Google Places API alternative.
100,000 place searches for $49, where Google runs four figures. And the results are yours: cache them, store them, ship them in your product. Open data, no expiry date.
- 10,000 searches a month, free
- Cacheable open-data results
- Your own place layers on top
Open data from the Overture Maps Foundation
39M places 19 markets 1 GET endpoint Monthly Overture refresh
Try the live API.
This isn't a mockup — every search is a live call to the real API, returning the same JSON your key would. Type a query, then pan the map to move the coordinate. No signup, no key; the demo is rate-limited, so grab a free key when you want room to build.
Try
Try
- Search to see live places.
GET
https://api.openplacesapi.com/v1/places?q=coffee&lat=40.7128&lon=-74.006&radius_mi=25&limit=5 {
"results": [],
"meta": {
"request_id": "00000000-0000-4000-8000-000000000000",
"q": "coffee",
"mode": "all",
"lat": 40.7128,
"lon": -74.006,
"radius_mi": 25,
"limit": 5,
"offset": 0,
"category": null,
"min_confidence": null,
"warnings": []
}
} Spotted a gap or a place that closed? In production, account layers fix the data for your keys — add private places, correct fields, or hide bad records, merged live into every search.
Drag the green pin — or click anywhere on the map — to move the search. The API takes the coordinate and returns JSON, not tiles.
One endpoint. One key. One curl away.
The whole product is a single GET against /v1/places. Search text, or list a category in a radius. Get back places you are allowed to keep.
api.openplacesapi.com ● 41 ms
1curl -G "https://api.openplacesapi.com/v1/places" \ 2 --data-urlencode "q=coffee" \ 3 --data-urlencode "lat=40.7128" \ 4 --data-urlencode "lon=-74.0060" \ 5 -H "Authorization: Bearer $OPEN_PLACES_API_KEY"
1{ 2 "results": [ 3 { 4 "place_id": "overture:08f2c...", 5 "name": "Devocion", 6 "lat": 40.688838, 7 "lon": -73.979914, 8 "distance_mi": 0.4, 9 "categories": ["cafe"], 10 "address": { "locality": "Brooklyn", "country_code": "US" }, 11 "phone": "+17185551212", 12 "website": "https://www.devocion.com", 13 "confidence": 0.92, 14 "operating_status": "operational" 15 } 16 ], 17 "meta": { 18 "request_id": "00000000-0000-4000-8000-000000000000", 19 "q": "coffee", 20 "mode": "all", 21 "lat": 40.7128, 22 "lon": -74.006, 23 "radius_mi": 25, 24 "limit": 10, 25 "offset": 0, 26 "warnings": [] 27 } 28}
From zero to a result in three steps.
No SDK, no dashboard tour. If you can run curl, you're live in about 30 seconds.
- 1
Create a key
Sign up free and copy your key from the console. No credit card.
- 2
Drop it in your shell
export OPEN_PLACES_API_KEY=opa_live_…
- 3
Make the call
curl -G "https://api.openplacesapi.com/v1/places" \ --data-urlencode "q=coffee" \ --data-urlencode "lat=40.7128" \ --data-urlencode "lon=-74.0060" \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $OPEN_PLACES_API_KEY"
Pricing you can model.
Free 10,000 calls a month. Then $19 for 30,000, $49 for 100,000, or $249 for 1 million. Every plan has a hard cap, so the bill never surprises you.
Area lists, not just top hits.
Use category to page through an area list, with confidence filters and phone or website fields
when Overture has them.
Built for places you can keep.
Every request has a coordinate and a radius up to 50 miles. Use it for area lists, listing enrichment, entity matching, and backend local search.
-
Lead-gen area lists
List every returned plumber, cafe, pharmacy, or venue in a radius and keep the records in your workflow.
-
Listing enrichment
Attach nearby schools, groceries, transit stops, or services to properties and destination pages.
-
Entity resolution
Match local business records against Overture-backed IDs, categories, addresses, websites, and phones.
-
Travel & itinerary apps
Surface cafes, sights, and stops around a hotel, a route point, or a pin a traveler just dropped.
-
Store & venue finders
Search your own locations as an account layer, with Overture as the backdrop or switched off entirely.
-
AI agents & LLM tools
One GET with a JSON answer is the easiest places tool an agent can call. Flat caps keep agent loops from costing you rent.
Not for
Address autocomplete, street-address geocoding, map tiles, or global unscoped search. If you need those, we're the wrong API. This is the open places layer, not the whole maps platform.
Anyone can host Overture.
The layers are yours.
The base data is open — that's the point. What you build on top is the part nobody can copy: your corrections, your suppressions, and your private places, merged into every search your keys make.
- Corrections fix the base where it's wrong for your product.
- Suppressions hide the place that closed last spring.
- Private records exist only for your account's keys.
- Presets pin a layer mix to an API key — no query changes.
- Grants share a vetted layer with a partner account, read-only.
You don't need the whole platform.
Full maps platforms are right when you need the whole stack. Open Places API is narrower: hosted Overture Places search, predictable quotas, and account-owned layers.
Looking at migration economics? Start with the comparison guide, read the data-rights page, or read the specific pages: Google Places, Foursquare, Mapbox, Radar, Geoapify, LocationIQ, and HERE.
Open Places API Google Places Self-hosted Overture
Billing Flat plan, hard cap See current Google Maps Platform pricing Your cloud, storage, and search infrastructure
Scope Server-side place search Broad maps platform Whatever you build and operate
Integration One GET, a bearer token Google APIs and SDKs Ingestion, indexing, search, and serving
Data Overture-backed, published schema Proprietary place index Raw Overture releases
Custom layers Built into the API model Owned outside the Places API Build the merge and precedence rules yourself
To start 10,000 calls free, no card Google Cloud project and billing setup Data pipeline and serving infrastructure
Flat plans. No overages.
Pick a tier. Hit the cap, never an overage.
$0/mo
- 10,000 calls per month
- 250 place-layer entries
- All 19 markets
- No credit card
$19/mo
- 30,000 calls per month
- 1,000 place-layer entries
- Best-effort support
- Hard cap. Never an overage charge.
- Annual: $190/yr — two months free
$49/mo
- 100,000 calls per month
- 5,000 place-layer entries
- Email support
- Hard cap. Never an overage charge.
- Annual: $490/yr — two months free
$249/mo
- 1,000,000 calls per month
- 50,000 place-layer entries
- Priority support
- Hard cap. Never an overage charge.
- Annual: $2,490/yr — two months free
Custom
- More than 1 million calls a month
- Custom layer capacity and quota
- SLA and support options
- Hard cap. Never an overage charge.
Questions, before you sign up.
What happens when I hit my cap?
The API returns a 402 and stops serving until your monthly reset. There's no overage tier and no surprise charge. You upgrade when you're ready, not because a bill forced you to.
How does the 1 million call price compare?
Do the arithmetic. Google's Places text-search SKUs run on the order of $17–$35 per 1,000 calls, so 100,000 searches a month lands in the four figures before credits. Startup is $49 flat for that volume, and Business is $249 for 1 million with a hard cap. Verify against current Google Maps Platform pricing before procurement — the gap survives the fine print. The other difference is shape: we're narrower, Overture-backed, and built for predictable backend search.
Can I use it for address autocomplete or geocoding?
No, and we'd rather tell you now than after you've integrated. Every search needs a lat/lon and a radius up to 50 miles — it's proximity search, “what's near this point.” If you need an address-form autocomplete or a street-address geocoder, use a geocoding service. If you need places near a coordinate, you're in the right place.
Which places are covered?
39 million places across 19 selected countries and territories: United States, Canada, Mexico, United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and Bahamas. See the current coverage page.
How fresh is the data?
It tracks Overture's monthly releases. When a new release clears our checks, the dataset moves up with it.
Do I need an SDK?
No. It's one authenticated GET to /v1/places with a bearer token, and JSON back. Use fetch, curl, or whatever your stack already has.
Can I use it commercially?
Yes. It's built on open Overture data. See the docs for the attribution details.
Get your key in under 30 seconds.
No credit card. You'll never owe more than your plan. One curl away from a real result.