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Google Distance Matrix API Alternatives: TravelTime API Comparison

Product and API Distance Matrix Google Comparison

rebecca payton

This post breaks down how the Google Distance Matrix API works, what it costs following Google's 2025 pricing and product changes, and how it compares with the TravelTime API for calculating travel times and distances at scale.

If you're comparing providers on price and limits more broadly, our distance matrix API pricing comparison covers TravelTime alongside Google, Mapbox, HERE and others.

If you've decided to evaluate a switch, the full TravelTime vs Google comparison goes deeper on commercial model, licensing and migration.

Why calculate travel times and distances?

Journey time calculations underpin location-based search, route optimisation and location analysis.

On a marketplace — a job board, property portal or store finder — travel time tells users what's genuinely reachable rather than what's nearby in a straight line. In logistics, organisations calculate real travel times and journeys for fleet management, optimising delivery routes, optimising field service workforces, and planning coverage. While location analytics is improved with accurate travel time calculations — assess a site's proximity to key points of interest, compare the impact of a new transit stop, and more.

All of it depends on a distance matrix: many origins evaluated against many destinations in one operation.

How does the Google Distance Matrix API work?

The Google Distance Matrix API calculates travel distances and durations between origins and destinations.

A request from a single origin to multiple destinations is a query. Within that query, each origin-destination pair is an element. One origin and ten destinations is ten elements.

That matters because elements are the billing unit for Google. A 50 x 200 matrix is 10,000 billable elements in a single call, and costs scale multiplicatively rather than simply per request.

Legacy status and what replaced it

In March 2025, Google moved the Distance Matrix API and the Directions API to Legacy status.

Legacy is not the same as switched off. Existing projects continue to work, and Google commits to at least 12 months' notice before decommissioning anything. But three things follow:

New Cloud projects can't enable it. Anything built from scratch has to use the Routes API instead.
The product is frozen. No new features, and volume discounts on legacy SKUs are capped.
In February 2026, Google deprecated google.maps.DistanceMatrixService, the JavaScript client library, on the same terms.

How much does the Google Distance Matrix API cost?

Google uses a pay-as-you-go model for its Distance Matrix API. The API is priced per element and differs based on whether you are using a Basic or Advanced request.

Google bills the Distance Matrix and Routes APIs per element, on a pay-as-you-go basis. Pricing varies by SKU, and whether the request uses basic or advanced features such as traffic-aware routing.

Two changes since March 2025 matter more than the per-element rate.

$200 monthly credit is gone. Google withdrew the flat credit on 1 March 2025 and replaced it with per-SKU free thresholds: 10,000 free monthly events for Essentials SKUs, 5,000 for Pro, and 1,000 for Enterprise.
Each SKU meters separately, so an application calling several APIs together no longer draws on one pooled allowance to absorb them.

Subscription plans arrived in November 2025. Google now offers tiered monthly plans bundling a combined call allowance, which give predictable costs at moderate volume.

The practical consequence is that Google's costs are usage-based. Predictable if your volume is steady and modest yet hard to forecast if it's spiky, batched, or growing.

Read Google Maps Platform pricing

What is the best alternative to the Google Distance Matrix API?

The Travel Time Matrix API is the best alternative to the Google Distance Matrix API.

With TravelTime, you can calculate travel times between thousands of origins and destinations simultaneously, for any mode of transport – including driving, public transport, cycling and walking.

TravelTime is also more cost-effective than the Google Distance Matrix API.

Instead of charging per transaction, for one fixed monthly cost you can make unlimited requests. It’s significantly more scalable when you need thousands or millions of calculations.

What are the main differences between the Google Distance Matrix API and TravelTime API?

There are a number of differences between the two offers from Google and TravelTime across pricing, data, transport modes, performance, and more.

	Google Distance Matrix / Routes API	TravelTime API
Product status	Distance Matrix API in Legacy status since March 2025. Routes API is current	Generally available, actively developed
Pricing model	Pay-as-you-go, billed per element and per SKU. Subscription plans available	Fixed annual price, unlimited requests
Locations per request	Legacy Distance Matrix: 25 origins × 25 destinations. Routes API: 625 elements, 100 on transit	Varies by endpoint — Time Filter: 10 × 2,000. Time Filter Fast: 10 × 100,000. Time Filter Fast (Protobuf): 1 × 200,000
Public transport	Supported, capped at 100 elements per request	Full mode at the same matrix scale as driving, with departure and arrival time modelling
Drive time data	Driving speeds for any time of day, with average, optimistic and pessimistic traffic models	Driving speeds for any time of day, with average, optimistic and pessimistic traffic models
Live traffic	Yes	No — Repeatable results
Isochrones	Isochrones API in pre-GA Preview since July 2026. Driving, walking and cycling only	Generally available, all modes including public transport
Caching and storage	Prohibited except where expressly permitted — coordinates for up to 30 days, place IDs indefinitely. Travel times and distances are not covered	Results can be cached, stored and re-used
Geocoding	Priced separately via the Geocoding API	Included
Routing	Priced separately via the Directions API	Included
Coverage	Varies by product and region	200+ countries and territories

Creating a distance matrix with TravelTime

To create a distance matrix, you'll need a TravelTime API key. Submit a single POST request specifying transport mode, departure or arrival time, and travel time limit.

Matrix size depends on the endpoint you choose:

Time Filter: Up to 10 × 2,000. Full routing detail.
Time Filter Fast: Up to 10 × 100,000. Optimised for volume.
Time Filter Fast (Protobuf): Up to 1 × 200,000. Lowest latency, binary response.

Discover our tutorial here. Test out the API in our Matrix Developer Playground for free.

What can the TravelTime API be used for?

Location-based search

Filter, rank and list results by travel time rather than radial distance, so the most genuinely reachable results surface first.

Used by online marketplaces, including job portals Stepstone, Grupa Pracuj, and Reed, and property sites including Zoopla, Realtor, and Rightmove.

Location intelligence and site analysis

Assess real-world proximity between locations and points of interest for location analysis: office relocation, retail site selection, site scoring, and more. Integrates with ArcGIS, QGIS and Alteryx.

Route optimisation

Plan workforce distribution, fleet coverage, and scheduling using real routes, departure times and travel times rather than distance alone. Routing is included in the TravelTime plan; with Google it's a separately billed API.

Comparing other Google and TravelTime map services

Isochrones

An isochrone shows everywhere reachable within a time limit by a given transport mode.

Google launched an Isochrones API in July 2026. It generates polygons with traffic-aware routing, and if you need a driving catchment under an hour in a supported region, it does the job. Three constraints matter if you're building on it:

It's pre-GA: Google classifies it as Preview — limited support, and changes that may not be backwards-compatible
No public transport: Driving, walking and cycling only
A one-hour ceiling: Maximum travel time is 3,600 seconds for driving and 7,200 seconds for walking and cycling

TravelTime's isochrone API is generally available, includes public transport, supports unions and intersections across multiple origins in a single call, and allows results to be stored. Maximum travel time is 4 hours.

Read our full isochrone comparison.

Routing, geocoding, and POIs

Routing, geocoding, POIs and our new data layer (environmental, demographic etc.) are included in the TravelTime plan. Google prices these separately, via the Directions API, Geocoding API, and Places API.

Google Distance Matrix API vs TravelTime pricing

Google charges per element. Every origin-destination pair is billable, so cost rises with the size of your matrices and the frequency of your queries. At large scale, or with batch processing, that becomes hard to forecast.

TravelTime charges a fixed annual price for unlimited requests across all endpoints. Costs are known in advance and don't move when traffic spikes or a second use case is added.

At low or steady volume, Google's per-SKU free tiers and subscription plans may work out cheaper, and if you need live traffic on every request or a full mapping stack alongside routing, Google is the stronger platform.

The fixed model from TravelTime is best when matrices are large, load is unpredictable, public transport matters, or you need to store results.

Read our detailed price comparison.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Google Distance Matrix API being discontinued?

It moved to Legacy status on 1 March 2025, meaning it's unavailable in new Cloud projects and frozen for new features, but existing projects continue to work. Google commits to at least 12 months' notice before decommissioning. The current replacement is Routes API computeRouteMatrix.

What replaced the $200 Google Maps monthly credit?

Google withdrew the flat $200 credit and replaced it with per-SKU free usage thresholds: 10,000 free monthly events for Essentials SKUs, 5,000 for Pro and 1,000 for Enterprise. Each SKU meters separately, so applications calling several APIs no longer share a single pooled allowance.

Does Google Maps have an isochrone API?

Yes, since July 2026. The Google Isochrones API is in pre-GA Preview and supports driving, walking and cycling, with a maximum travel time of one hour for driving and two hours for walking and cycling. It doesn't support public transport.

How many elements can the Google Distance Matrix API handle per request?

Legacy Distance Matrix supports up to 25 origins and 25 destinations per request, with a rate limit of 60,000 elements per minute. Routes API computeRouteMatrix caps at 625 elements, dropping to 100 when travel mode is transit.

Can you cache Google Maps API results?

Google's terms prohibit caching Google Maps Content except where expressly permitted. The permissions are narrow: coordinates may be cached for up to 30 consecutive calendar days, and place IDs stored indefinitely. Travel times and distances returned by the Distance Matrix and Routes APIs are not covered. Terms differ in the EEA.

A scalable alternative to the Google Distance Matrix API

Both APIs calculate travel times and distances across transport modes, and both do it well. They differ on commercial model, matrix scale, transit capacity and what you're allowed to keep.

TravelTime is built for the case where those four things decide the architecture: large matrices, unpredictable load, public transport as a core mode, and results you need to store and re-use.