Google Maps prices slashed by 70% for developers after Ola Maps offered for free, Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal responds

Google slashes prices for Google Maps after Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal offers Ola Maps to developers for a one-year free period.

Google has announced a 70% reduction in Google Maps’ API prices for Indian developers, which comes one week after Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal gave one-year free access to Ola Maps for all developers.

Google has announced a 70% reduction in Google Maps’ API prices for Indian developers. (isaacmehegan/Unsplash)

This announcement was made by the tech giant at Google I/O Connect, its developer event at Bengaluru, on July 17.

How will Google Maps prices in India change and when?

Google has also said that it will give a 90% discount to developers working with Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), the state-owned company of the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade for developing open e-commerce.

The new prices will come into effect from August 1. Google has also introduced pricing specific for India, and will start accepting Google Maps subscription payments in rupees. It accepts payments only in US dollars currently.

What did Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal announce?

Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal announced that Ola cabs will be using its own in-house Ola Maps instead of Google maps, in a post on X (Formerly Twitter). The company would save ₹100 crore in the process, he added.

Two days after this, he also urged developers to use Ola Maps instead of Google Maps, giving them free access for one year.

He also announced that Ola Maps would get many new features soon, such as street view, NERFs, indoor images, 3D maps, and drone maps, and that it would be available on Krutrim cloud. Krutrim is Ola's in-house AI that was established in December last year.

After Google reduced its prices, the CEO responded with another post on X saying its “too little too late,” and adding that he would be announcing major updates on Ola Maps in a blog post on Krutrim.