Address Autocomplete Without Google: Options and Costs

You can add address autocomplete to a form without Google in three ways: an address API from another vendor, an open-source geocoder you run on your own server, or the browser's own autofill, which costs nothing. Of the nine vendors we read on October 20, 2026, six offer a free plan or trial with no credit card, and Mapbox offers a no-card demo account with lower limits. Google asks you to set up billing before you use the Places API.

Why teams look past Google

These are Google's own words, read on October 20, 2026.

• Billing first. Google's Places API overview starts with "Set up billing, enable Places API (New), and make your first request." Google's Maps Demo Key skips the card ("no credit card needed") and is meant for prototyping: "if you reach the daily limit, your usage is paused until the following day."
• The old widget is closed to new projects. "As of October 2026, Places API (Legacy) can no longer be enabled for new Google Cloud projects." New projects use Places API (New).
• A follow-up call for address fields. A Google suggestion is a place prediction. In Google's Place Details setup, your form makes a follow-up call to Place Details to get the street, city, state and ZIP, and Google meters that call on its own (Place Details Essentials: 10,000 free a month, then $5.00 per 1,000). With a session that ends in Place Details Essentials, Google bills "up to a maximum of 12" autocomplete requests per session, plus the Place Details call. Google also lets a session end in its Address Validation API instead.
• Attribution. Google's Places policies say "Attribution should take the form of the Google Maps logo whenever possible."

None of this makes Google wrong for every form. It is the list of things that change if you leave. For Google's session pricing in full, see address autocomplete API for forms: cost and setup.

Address autocomplete APIs that are not Google

Each row was read from the vendor's own page on October 20, 2026. "Billed per" matters as much as the price: a per-request API charges for every call, so calling after a pause in typing keeps the bill down.

Three things to check before you pick:

• What one completed address costs. sthan.io returns the full address in the suggestion, so one pick needs no second call. Woosmap needs a details call for each pick, and so does Google's Place Details setup.
• Who your users are. sthan.io's autocomplete covers US addresses only. If you need other countries, check each vendor's coverage list.
• What you must show. Geoapify (an OpenStreetMap credit always, a Geoapify credit on the free plan) and LocationIQ (free plan) require a credit on your page.

Open-source servers you run yourself

These cost nothing per request. You pay in servers, disk and your own time to load and update the data.

• Nominatim (OpenStreetMap's geocoder): its usage policy says autocomplete is "not yet supported by Nominatim" and forbids building it on the public server: "You must not implement such a service on the client side using the API." Running your own copy does not add autocomplete, so look at Photon or Pelias.
• Photon: an OpenStreetMap geocoder built for search-as-you-type. Its public demo server warns that "Extensive usage will be throttled or completely banned," and asks heavy users to run their own.
• Pelias: open source under the MIT license, with an autocomplete endpoint. "Pelias itself does not have API keys and is software you can run freely yourself."

Whichever you choose, test it with the addresses your own users type before you switch.

The free option: browser autofill

Browsers can save a person's address. MDN: "a browser might let the user save their name, address, phone number, and email addresses for autocomplete purposes." If your fields carry the right autocomplete tokens, the browser offers the saved address with no API at all:

<input name="street" autocomplete="street-address">
<input name="city" autocomplete="address-level2">
<input name="state" autocomplete="address-level1">
<input name="zip" autocomplete="postal-code">
<input name="country" autocomplete="country">

MDN lists each token and what it holds. This helps returning shoppers on their own device. Autofill fills addresses the browser already has, whether the person saved them or they were set up in advance; it does not search for an address the browser does not have, which is where an autocomplete API earns its cost. A form can use both.

What changes when you switch from Google to sthan.io

We typed 1355 market st san francisco into sthan.io's autocomplete on October 21, 2026 (20:32 UTC). The full answer:

{
  "Id": "6f96da9c-ecf7-46ff-8af2-e267d2515fe7",
  "Result": [
    "1355 Market St, San Francisco, CA 94103-1307",
    "1355 Market St, San Francisco, CA 94103-1326"
  ],
  "ClientSessionId": null,
  "StatusCode": 200,
  "IsError": false,
  "Errors": []
}

Each suggestion is the whole address, ZIP+4 included where it exists. Three things change in your form:

1. No details call. When the person picks a line, you already have the address. Split it into fields on your side:

   // "1355 Market St, San Francisco, CA 94103-1307" -> form fields
   function splitUsAddress(line) {
     const parts = line.split(",").map(s => s.trim());
     const [state, zip] = parts.pop().split(" ");
     const city = parts.pop();
     return { street: parts.join(", "), city, state, zip: zip || "" };
   }

   It expects the comma-separated line sthan.io returns, for a suggestion the person picked. It is not a general address parser.

2. The call goes through your server. The API accepts browser calls only from a short list of its own addresses (sthan.io and a local test address), so a direct call from your site is blocked, and your key must stay out of page source. A small route on your server adds the key and forwards the text. Our vanilla JavaScript tutorial builds that route step by step.
3. No Google logo to show. Google's attribution rule applies to Google's results only.

The rest stays the same: wait for a pause in typing before you call (we use 300 milliseconds), and verify the final address once on submit, because people can edit the line after they pick it.

Sources

All read October 20, 2026 and re-checked October 21, 2026. Prices change; check the vendor page before you buy.

• Google: Places API overview, Maps Demo Key, Demo Key documentation, Place Autocomplete (legacy), Autocomplete (New) session pricing, Google Maps Platform pricing list, Places API policies
• sthan.io US pricing and a live call to https://api.sthan.io/AutoComplete/USA/Address/{text}
• Smarty US Address Autocomplete pricing
• Geoapify pricing, Geoapify Address Autocomplete docs, Geoapify terms
• TomTom pricing
• LocationIQ pricing
• Woosmap pricing, Woosmap credit list, Woosmap terms
• Mapbox pricing, Mapbox demo access guide, Mapbox Search JS pricing guide
• Loqate pricing (US)
• Radar pricing
• Nominatim usage policy, Photon, Pelias
• MDN: the autocomplete attribute