# Google Places API versus a Google Maps data API.

> Google's Places API returns up to 5 reviews per place and limits what you store. When it is the right tool, and when a per-record Maps data API fits.

Canonical: https://apiforagents.dev/guides/google-places-api-vs-data-api · Updated 2026-10-21

Use Google's Places API to show places inside your app; use a data API to collect places and reviews for analysis. As of October 2026 the Places API returns at most 5 reviews per place, and Google's policies let you store place IDs indefinitely but limit other content.

- Reviews per place: Up to 5 (Places API)
- Stored forever: Place IDs only
- Billing: Required
- Checked: Oct 2026

## What each is for

Google's side is from its Places API documentation, seen 21 October 2026.

|  | Google Places API (New) | API for Agents |
|---|---|---|
| Search businesses by keyword and area | Text Search and Nearby Search | Yes |
| Place details | Yes, priced by the fields you ask for | Yes |
| Reviews | Up to 5 per place, by relevance | Up to 100 per call, newest or by rating, $0.000225 per record |
| Autocomplete, photos, maps in your UI | Yes | No |
| Keeping the data | Place IDs only, without limits | Your rows are yours to keep |
| Who can get access | Anyone with a Cloud project and billing | Anyone. An agent signs itself up in one call and starts on a $0.10 trial |
| Price model | Per 1,000 calls by SKU, with a free monthly cap | Pay as you go, from $0.000225 per record |
| Setup | Cloud project, billing, API key, field masks | One API key. No Google Maps account or app review |

## When the Places API is the right choice

Pick Google's API when the place data is shown to a user in your product: a store finder, an address box, a booking flow. It is fast, documented and covered by Google's licence for that use, including the attribution rules.

Pick a data API when the output is a dataset: every dentist in a city with ratings, the last hundred reviews of each competitor, a weekly check on a list of venues. That is where five reviews and the storage rules get in the way.

## What you can get here

- **[Google Maps Search API](https://apiforagents.dev/platforms/google_maps/search-api).** Every business for a keyword in a location, with rating, phone, address and category.
- **[Google Maps Places API](https://apiforagents.dev/platforms/google_maps/places-api).** Full details for known places: rating, review count, category, address, phone, website and hours.
- **[Google Maps Reviews API](https://apiforagents.dev/platforms/google_maps/reviews-api).** Review text, stars, date, reviewer and owner response, sorted newest or by rating.

> **Not affiliated** API for Agents is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google. It returns public data only: nothing behind a login.

## Operation pages

- [Google Maps Search API](https://apiforagents.dev/platforms/google_maps/search-api)
- [Google Maps Places API](https://apiforagents.dev/platforms/google_maps/places-api)
- [Google Maps Reviews API](https://apiforagents.dev/platforms/google_maps/reviews-api)

## Questions

### How many reviews does the Google Places API return?

At most 5 per place, sorted by relevance, according to the Place resource reference, as of October 2026.

### Can I store Google Places data?

Google's policies say place IDs are exempt from caching limits and can be stored indefinitely. For other fields, check the current Google Maps Platform terms.

### Does this API return Google place IDs?

Yes. Each place comes back with its place id, cid and place URL, so you can match rows with your own records.

### Can I search a whole city?

Yes. The search operation takes a keyword and a location and returns up to 100 businesses per call.

## Sources

1. [Places API (New): Place resource, reviews field](https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/places/web-service/reference/rest/v1/places), seen 21 October 2026
2. [Places API: Policies and attributions](https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/places/web-service/policies), seen 21 October 2026
3. [Places API (New): Data fields and SKUs](https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/places/web-service/data-fields), seen 21 October 2026
4. [Places API: Usage and billing](https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/places/web-service/usage-and-billing), seen 21 October 2026

## Why API for Agents

- One key for 26 platforms: social, commerce, jobs, places, search and contacts, with one request shape and one response shape.
- A free quote before any spend: add "estimateOnly": true to any call and see the most it can cost.
- Pay per record in US dollars. No subscription, nothing expires, top-ups from $5.
- $0.10 free to try, no card. An AI agent can sign itself up in one request; a person claims it later.
- Measured, not estimated: every answer says when each row was measured, whether it was fresh or a recent capture, and how sure to be of each field.
- Partial success is success: anything that could not be fetched is named with a reason, and the charge settles to what came back, never above the quote.
- Typed fields that keep their names whichever source answered, and a details object last with everything else the source sent, under our own field names.
- Try any endpoint in the playground and download the answer as CSV or JSON.

## Start

The playground runs any endpoint by hand: pick a platform and what you want from it, fill a short form named in plain words (or press Use sample input), see the free quote on the Run button, run it, then read the answer as a table or JSON and download it as CSV or JSON. The same call is written out as cURL, Python and Node while you type. Open it at https://apiforagents.dev/dashboard/run (sign in first).

Agents register at https://apiforagents.dev/auth.md (one POST, $0.10 free). People: https://apiforagents.dev/docs#start. Prices: https://apiforagents.dev/pricing.md