I’ve been developing my application with Google Maps and the wonderful rails plugin for it, expecting to find that when I put my app into production that the commercial licensing wouldn’t be too expensive.
Then I found out it cost $10,000/year, no exceptions so far.
http://www.47hats.com/2009/07/google-maps-the-10k-gotcha/
That’s not a terrible price to pay for unlimited usage when your site becomes successful, but for those of us trying to build something from the ground up, that’s a hefty price to pay. I’ve looked at Bing and Yahoo but they’re very wishy-washy with what ballpark the pricing is. That on top of the fact I have to ditch my nice rails plugin YM4R for Google maps…
Is anyone out there using a map API solution that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to get started with in a commercial aspect? I don’t mind not using a plugin, I just need something that will work and is cost affordable in the beginning.
CloudMade has been recommended in this previous question. Have a look at their pricing.