Google Maps Pricing Changes 2025: The $200 Credit Is Gone, Directions & Places Go Legacy

In March 2025 Google Maps Platform made a major pricing change that many engineering teams in Vietnam only noticed when the end-of-month bill arrived: the universal $200/month credit was removed, and three familiar services — Directions, Distance Matrix, and Places — were moved to Legacy status. This post summarizes exactly what changed (per Google's official announcement), what it means in practice for a Vietnam-focused app, and the alternatives if the new bill makes you wince.

This is news plus analysis; if you want a detailed, SKU-by-SKU bill calculation, read Google Maps API cost vs GoGoDuk.

What changed in March 2025

Previously every Google Maps Platform account received a $200 free credit each month, shared across all services. You only paid once you burned through that $200. Since March 1, 2025, Google removed this and replaced it with a separate free usage cap per SKU, grouped into three price tiers:

These are the official figures on Google's pricing page. The key difference: you used to have one flexible $200 pool; now each SKU has its own small cap that cannot be combined. An app that touches many SKUs burns through those small caps faster than you would expect.

Directions, Distance Matrix and Places API are now "Legacy"

In the same change, Google moved three services to Legacy status:

• Directions API → replaced by Routes API
• Distance Matrix API → replaced by Routes API
• Places API → replaced by Places API (New)

"Legacy" means the service still runs but is no longer recommended, receives no new features, and will be deprecated in the future. Google commits to at least 12 months' notice before decommissioning a Legacy service, and has not announced a shutdown date yet. But the message is clear: if your app calls the old Directions/Distance Matrix/Places, you are standing on a platform you will eventually have to migrate off — the only question is when.

For many teams in Vietnam, this hidden cost is bigger than the money: you have to spend a sprint rewriting the integration to Routes API / Places API (New), re-testing, and absorbing a different response shape.

How the new free caps work in practice

A typical location feature does not touch one SKU — it touches three (for example: address autocomplete at checkout, geocoding on order confirmation, and a map load on the page). Under the old model, $200 covered all three. Under the new model, each SKU only gets its own free cap — and most apps exceed those small caps early.

The result: bills are harder to predict, and a single traffic-spike day can push several SKUs over the billable threshold at once. The concrete bill math (USD/month, converted to VND) is built out in detail in the cost comparison post — here, just remember: the new free caps are not as generous as the old $200 for multi-SKU apps.

Volume discounts: threshold raised from 100,000 to 5 million

One more under-discussed change: Google expanded its automatic volume discounts, from the old 100,000+ events/month threshold up to 5,000,000+ events/month. That sounds good, but in reality only very large customers reach the deeper discount tiers. The vast majority of Vietnam apps — even mid-sized e-commerce ones — never get there, so this benefit barely applies to them. For most, the story is still: exhaust the small free cap, then pay list price.

What it means for Vietnam-focused apps

Taken together, the 2025 change pushes three risks onto product teams in Vietnam:

• Less predictable cost — many small free caps instead of one shared credit, easy to exceed silently.
• Migration pressure — the old Directions/Distance Matrix/Places are Legacy; sooner or later you must rewrite to Routes / Places (New).
• Vendor lock-in — every pricing or service-lifecycle change is outside your control.

These compound the familiar pains discussed in why Google Maps API gets blocked/expensive in Vietnam and why many Vietnamese apps leave Google Maps.

The way out: your alternatives

If your workload is mostly Vietnamese users and addresses, a few directions are worth weighing — stated honestly, including each option's strengths:

• Self-host OpenStreetMap (OSM): free and fully under your control, but you run the tile/geocoding infrastructure and operations yourself.
• Goong, Vietmap, Map4D: mature Vietnamese map providers with good local data and rich features — paid models, a fit when you need enterprise support and SLAs.
• GoGoDuk: an OSM-based map/geocoding API tuned for Vietnam, free for 100 requests/day per account (raise the limit on request), no credit card. GoGoDuk's directions and geocoding are not part of Google's Legacy set, so you avoid the migration pressure above. The trade-off: GoGoDuk does not have Google's global coverage — if you need POIs/maps outside Vietnam, Google still makes more sense.

For a feature-by-feature comparison of the options above, read the best Vietnam map APIs of 2026. If you want to try it now, you can create a free GoGoDuk account and put your real flow on it this afternoon — with the bill still at zero.