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At first, usage-based B2B technology pricing feels like freedom.
It’s simple. You only pay for what you use, there is no heavy upfront commitment, no wasted spend, and when you scale your costs scale with you.
But as you grow, your reliance on your technology grows, and so does your spend. At some point along the journey, something flips, and transactional pricing starts to hold you back.
You’re not staying because you get the benefits of PAYG, you’re staying because you can’t afford to leave. This is technical lock-in powered by transactional pricing.
It’s like building your business on someone else’s land—and when they raise the rent, you can feel like you’re stuck.
When Flexibility Turns to Friction
At the beginning, your business wants to move fast and pay-as-you-go infrastructure offers an avenue to help you do that.
You don’t have to build every system from scratch. You can outsource storage, compute, location services, observability, and more. In these early development stages, every dollar spent feels like an investment in shipping faster.
However, there are several challenges that come from transactional, usage-based, or PAYG pricing.
For example, the deeper you build into a platform, the harder it is to walk away. You have:
- Integrated APIs – your systems depend on theirs
- Workflow coupling – your ops run on their architecture
- Team training – your people learn their tools
- Centralised observability – insight lives in their stack
And the more you use, the more your bill grows. What seemed flexible at first becomes a trap. You’ve built around the vendor, and now they’ve built your pricing around you — trapping you in a misaligned and expensive technology relationship.
The Cost of Staying
Most teams don’t realise how deep their dependency runs until they try to leave.
What starts as a flexible, pay-as-you-grow model eventually becomes a costly constraint. You question the value you’re getting, but usage keeps rising. You explore alternatives, but switching feels complex.
Meanwhile, your vendor holds all the power—and they know it. But the real risk is staying.
Staying with the wrong vendor drains your budget, limits your bargaining power, slows innovation, and drives internal frustration. Your team ends up compromising because of a pricing model, not building what matters.
Lock-In Isn’t Just Technical
It’s important to remember that vendor lock-in isn’t just technical and the consequences aren’t just financial. The longer teams avoid switching, the harder it becomes to question the status quo.
But a strong tech culture embraces change. It reviews vendor relationships regularly. It challenges business as usual and questions attitudes of: “It’s how we’ve always done it.”
These businesses push for transparency, flexibility, and fairness. Especially in pricing.
How to Switch Without the Stress
Switching vendors can feel daunting. But it doesn’t have to be.
The right partner makes migration straightforward, not stressful. Modern fixed-cost vendors are designed for:
- Clear onboarding to get you live faster
- Transparent, predictable pricing that aligns with how you deliver value
- Minimal code changes to help you swap APIs without disrupting your roadmap
And the rewards go far beyond cost savings. Switching puts your teams back in control, allowing them to innovate and build without one eye on the meter. It reduces complexity, improves planning, and aligns pricing with growth—not against it.
At TravelTime, we own our infrastructure and can deliver unlimited complex location insights for fixed price. We reject the pay-per-call API pricing model.
Check out the pricing comparisons for two of our key features:
Or dive straight into our Google Distance Matrix API migration guide to see how easy the switch can be.
You’re closer than you think to a better pricing model—and getting more value from your technology.
Ditch Hidden Costs: Choose Freedom with TravelTime
At TravelTime, we believe pricing should empower your team and not penalise growth.
Our location API gives businesses full access to powerful features like distance matrices, isochrones, routing, and geocoding—all for one simple, fixed monthly fee. No rate limiting. No usage cliffs. No surprise bills.
For our users, that means:
- Unlimited usage across your stack
- Total predictability in your budget
- Freedom to innovate, without second-guessing your costs
We’re the API partner built for builders. If you’re tired of being held hostage by transactional pricing, we’re here to help you make the switch away from other location APIs.
Chat with us to get started.
