A Simple Geoapify Alternative for Geocoding
Geoapify is a solid open-data location platform with a genuinely useful free tier of 3,000 credits/day. Its pricing runs on credits: a plain geocoding request costs one credit, but other operations are weighted differently, so your real capacity depends on your exact mix of calls. This page compares it with ExoAPI's geocoding API, which trades the credit system for one number: requests per day.
Geoapify vs ExoAPI at a Glance
| Geoapify Free | Geoapify API 10 | ExoAPI Geocoding | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | $59/month | From 9€/month |
| Daily quota | 3,000 credits/day | 10,000 credits/day | 1,000 requests/day entry, up to 50,000/day by plan |
| Pricing unit | Credits (weighted per API) | Credits (weighted per API) | Requests |
| Storing / caching results | Allowed (open data) | Allowed (open data) | Allowed (open data) |
| Data source | OpenStreetMap + open data | OpenStreetMap + open data | OpenStreetMap, refreshed regularly |
| Bundled APIs | Maps, routing, isolines… | Maps, routing, isolines… | All ExoAPI APIs (geocoding, PDF, barcodes, moderation…) |
Pricing last checked October 2026 - always verify against the providers' official pricing pages.
Credits vs Requests
For pure forward geocoding, Geoapify's math is simple: 1 request = 1 credit, so the free tier really is 3,000 geocodes a day - use it with a clear conscience for side projects.
The accounting gets harder the moment your usage mixes APIs. Map tiles, routing, isolines and batch jobs each consume credits at their own rates, so the capacity question becomes "how many credits does our traffic pattern burn?" - something you discover from the usage dashboard rather than the pricing page. Capacity planning means modelling your mix; a new feature on the map can eat the quota your geocoding relied on.
ExoAPI's model removes the shared budget: a geocoding plan is a number of geocoding requests per day, and the other bundled APIs (reverse geocoding, HTML to PDF, barcodes, content moderation) have their own per-plan quotas instead of draining a common pool.
When Geoapify Is the Better Choice
- Your needs are map-centric: tiles, routing, isolines and geocoding from one vendor, one credit pool.
- The free tier covers you - 3,000 credits/day of plain geocoding is one of the better free deals around.
- You like dialing a single plan up and down to cover everything at once.
When ExoAPI Is the Better Choice
- You want predictable geocoding capacity that no other feature can consume.
- Your entry point is small: 9€/month for 1,000 requests/day (~30,000/month), stored and reused freely, versus $59/month for the first Geoapify tier.
- The rest of your stack needs non-map APIs - PDF generation, QR codes, AI content moderation - included in the same subscription rather than bought elsewhere.
Migrating From Geoapify
Replace the Geoapify geocoding call:
const res = await fetch(`https://api.geoapify.com/v1/geocode/search?text=${encodeURIComponent(address)}&apiKey=${GEOAPIFY_KEY}`);
const data = await res.json();
const { lat, lon } = data.features[0].properties;
With the ExoAPI call:
import { ExoAPI } from "@flower-digital/exoapi-sdk";
const exoapi = new ExoAPI({ apiKey: "<your-api-key>" });
const { lat, lon, postalCode, city, country } = await exoapi.geocoding({
address,
});
Both are OpenStreetMap-based and both let you store the output, so you can migrate incrementally and keep every coordinate you have already paid for.
Try It on Your Own Addresses
Start a free 14-day trial (no credit card required), geocode a sample of your real addresses, and compare the results for your regions before deciding.
