If you are reading this article then chances are that you know how Google Maps scraper APIs actually work and what data they can provide you.
If you don’t know that then you should read how to scrape google maps. In this article, I will compare top Google Maps scraping APIs by testing each of them on various parameters.
I do have a simple Python script on which I will check all these Maps Scraper APIs. And based on my test I will give a report at the very end of this read.
Let’s get started!!
Testing Script
I am going to use this Python code to test all the products in the list.
I will pass random words to the APIs and record their average success rate and timing.
In total 50 requests will be made to each API.
import requests
import time
import random
# List of random words to use in the search query
search_terms = ["pizza", "burger", "sushi", "coffee", "tacos", "salad", "pasta", "steak", "sandwich", "noodles", "bbq", "dumplings", "shawarma", "falafel", "pancakes", "waffles", "curry", "soup", "kebab", "ramen"]
# API details
base_url = API_URL
total_requests = 50
success_count = 0
total_time = 0
for i in range(total_requests):
try:
# Pick a random search term from the list
search_term = random.choice(search_terms)
url = base_url.format(query=search_term)
start_time = time.time() # Record the start time
response = requests.get(url)
end_time = time.time() # Record the end time
# Calculate the time taken for this request
request_time = end_time - start_time
total_time += request_time
# Check if the request was successful (status code 200)
if response.status_code == 200:
success_count += 1
print(f"Request {i+1} with search term '{search_term}' took {request_time:.2f} seconds, Status: {response.status_code}")
except Exception as e:
print(f"Request {i+1} with search term '{search_term}' failed due to {str(e)}")
# Calculate the average time taken per request
average_time = total_time / total_requests
success_rate = (success_count / total_requests) * 100
# Print the results
print(f"\nTotal Requests: {total_requests}")
print(f"Successful Requests: {success_count}")
print(f"Average Time per Request: {average_time:.2f} seconds")
print(f"Success Rate: {success_rate:.2f}%")
Criteria for Comparison
- Data Coverage- Types of data covered, like business listings, reviews, ratings, addresses, and contact info.
- Ease of Use- User-friendliness of the APIs, including documentation, sample code, and integration complexity.
- Rate Limits & Speed- API rate limits, speed of data extraction, and whether they offer real-time data scraping.
- Pricing- Overview of the cost structure for each API (free tier and paid plans).
- Accuracy & Reliability- Accuracy and reliability of the scraped data, including error rates and uptime.
- Customer Support- Evaluate the support services provided by each API (live chat, email, documentation quality, and video tutorials).
Let’s evaluate each API now!!
Scrapingdog
- Scrapingdog‘s Google map scraping API provides all the data like phone numbers, ratings, operational hours, etc. Within Google Maps, Scrapingdog provide three more APIs which are reviews API, posts API, and photos API.
- You get 1000 free credits for testing the API. We regularly post YouTube tutorials through which you can learn how to use the APIs.
- Even a non-developer can scrape the data from Google Maps from the dashboard. The documentation is very well written and developers will find this API very easy to integrate.
- This is the most economical solution in this list. The pricing starts from $0.00033 per request and goes down even more if the volume increases.
- Our customer support is very active. Whether you mail us or shoot us a message on the chat widget we will respond within a minute or so.
Enough of talking let’s test this API and see whether it can really fit into your working environment.
Test Results of Scrapingdog Google Maps API
- The success rate is 100%.
- The average response time was 3.05 seconds.
Here’s a small tutorial to help you setup your account on Scrapingdog and start scraping maps. ⬇️
SerpAPI
- Like Scrapingdog, Serpapi provides complete data from Google Maps like contact numbers, ratings, titles, etc. The only thing they do not provide is Google Maps posts API. Other than that the API is very complete.
- Serpapi provides 100 free credits for testing which are enough to test before you commit to a paid plan.
- They have a tool on their dashboard through which you can test their APIs. The documentation is pretty nice, so developers will not face any major issues while integrating the API.
- It is the most expensive solution on this list. Its pricing starts from $0.00916 per request and goes below if you select upper-tier packs.
- Their support is also very good. You will get instant answers to any of your queries.
Test Results of SerpAPI
After making 50 API requests to SerpAPI we got these results.
- Success rate was 100%.
- The average time taken by each request was 3.86 seconds, compared to Scrapingdog which was 3.05 seconds.
Read More: 10 Best SerpAPI Alternatives for Scraping Google Search Results
Zenserp
- Zenserp is another product on the list that provides Google Maps API. It, too, provides almost all the data points from the Google Maps page.
- They provide 50 free credits for testing the API beyond this point you have to buy the subscription plan.
- Their documentation is outdated and many URLs are incorrect. However, they do provide a front-end to test the API without coding.
- In their “Large” pack you get a pricing of $0.00498 per request and the pricing further goes down with volume.
- They provide no support through instant chat or email.
Test Results of Zenserp
- The success rate was 98%
- The average response time was 7.29 seconds which is almost double of Scrapingdog and SerpAPI.
Hasdata
- Hasdata is another interesting choice for scraping Google Maps data. They too provide complete data points from the target Google Maps page.
- They provide 1000 free credits for testing the API.
- Documentation is pretty great and integrating their API is also very simple.
- In their Enterprise pack, each request costs around $0.000415. This pack provides just 50 concurrent calls, while other services including Scrapingdog offer 100 concurrent calls for the same cost.
- You can contact them via email.
Test Results of Hasdata
- The success rate is 100%
- The average response time is 6.59 seconds, again this is very high compared to other providers mentioned in the list.
Searchapi
- SearchApi is the last product on this list. They also provide complete data from any Google Maps page.
- Provides 100 free credits to begin with.
- Documentation is pretty nice and any developer can easily integrate their API.
- In their “BigData Plan,” the per-call cost is $0.0025. However, they have not mentioned concurrency.
- You can contact them through email or chat support.
Test Results of SearchApi
- The success rate was 100%.
- The average response time was 4.24 seconds.
Final Verdict
Scrapingdog and Hasdata have the lowest cost per request, and SerpAPI has the highest.
In my tests, if you compare average response time then Scrapingdog and Serpapi offers the fastest Google Maps Scraper APIs.
This graph shows value-for-money products and Scrapingdog becomes the clear choice when scraping Google Maps.
Conclusion
In my research, I found these Google Maps APIs to be the best available out there.
There are general web scraping APIs though, but some of them don’t offer dedicated API for Google Maps, and for the same reason I haven’t included them in my list.
On picking one from the list above, I have tried to simplified things with the tests. However, I would recommend you to spin each of them before committing to a paid plan.
In case you need any support from us, you can reach out to the live chat anytime and we are happy to help!