Buyer's guide
Best Google Maps scrapers: a criteria-first comparison
Dated observations from 8 October 2026. No rankings, no affiliate links, no invented reviews.
Instead of a ranked list, this guide gives you the criteria that decide which Google Maps scraper fits, plus a dated snapshot of six tools with their observed entry prices and pricing units.
Gmap Data is one of the six, and this page states plainly where it is the more expensive choice.
New accounts are invite-only while we onboard early customers.
There is no universal best - so here is the method
Searching for the "best Google Maps scraper" usually returns listicles with affiliate links and invented rankings. This page does something different: it gives you the criteria that decide the answer for your case, then a dated snapshot of six well-known tools so you can apply the criteria yourself.
No tool is ranked here, and no review count, customer number or performance score is claimed. Every competitor figure below was read from a public vendor page on the same day and is labelled with that date.
The criteria that actually decide it
- Pricing unit: per record, per search, per saved business, or per platform credit. Comparing headline prices across units is the most common buying mistake.
- Free tier: enough to test one real market without a card?
- Coverage model: city radius, grid search, whole country, or admin-level filters.
- Deduplication: what happens when two searches overlap - do you pay twice for the same business?
- Fields and provenance: address parts, categories, hours, place id, and where each field came from.
- Contact data: are emails discovered from business websites, and do you get source, quality and verification status?
- Exports and integrations: CSV, Excel, JSON, CRM or Sheets, and whether columns are stable across releases.
- Developer surface: API, MCP or browser extension - required for some teams, irrelevant for others.
- Terms and retention: how the tool is built (official APIs versus browser automation) and what its terms say about storing data.
- Recurring work: saved searches, refreshes and how a re-run avoids paying for rows you already have.
A dated snapshot of six tools
Every figure in this table was observed on 8 October 2026. Prices change; re-check the vendor page before buying. The "unit" column is the whole point: these tools do not sell the same thing.
| Tool | Model | Observed entry price | Unit | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gmap Data | Managed web app | Free: 10 credits/mo; Starter $149/mo | Saved business (1 credit = 1 saved row) | Searches, duplicates and failures free; CSV; projects; BYOK enrichment and verification; country campaigns for MY/ID/VN |
| GMapsScraper.io | Cloud app + extension + API | Free: 10 credits; Starter $19/mo (list $39); packs from $9 | Search credit | Email extraction included at every tier; API and extension; one-time credit packs that never expire |
| G Maps Extractor | Cloud app + extension + API + MCP | Free: 1,000 records/mo; Lite $19/mo (list $29) | Record | 20,000 records on Lite; CSV/Excel/JSON; multi-keyword tasks; five languages |
| Outscraper | Pay-as-you-go cloud services | Free: first 500 businesses; then $3 per 1,000 records (to 100k) | Record | No monthly subscription; many separate services; API access; Parquet export |
| Apify (compass/crawler-google-places) | Cloud actor on Apify platform | From $1.50 per 1,000 scraped places | Place | Runs on the Apify platform with its own plan and compute charges; API and scheduling |
| Scrap.io | Cloud app + extension | Basic $35/mo billed yearly (monthly billing higher) | Export credit | 10,000 monthly credits on Basic; search by city/level 1/level 2/country tiers; API and MCP access |
Observed 8 October 2026 from each vendor's public pricing or product page. Not independently audited. Gmap Data's own column is from its live catalogue on the same date.
How to compare prices without being misled
- Convert everything to cost per 1,000 unique businesses you keep. A $19 plan for 20,000 records is roughly $0.95 per 1,000 records; a $149 plan for 1,000 saved businesses is $149 per 1,000. The units are not the same, so the numbers are not comparable until you convert them.
- Check what consumes a unit. If duplicates and failed lookups consume credits, your effective cost is higher than the headline.
- Look for surcharges: some platforms bill extra for email enrichment or reviews on top of the base record price.
- Check minimums and commitments: annual billing, platform fees, or a minimum monthly spend can dominate the listed price.
- Count the workflow you would have to build: if the tool has no deduplication, no refresh mode or no contact evidence, your team pays for that in time.
Where Gmap Data fits - and where it does not
Gmap Data is not the cheapest per record, and this page will not pretend otherwise. On the observed numbers, GMapsScraper's search-credit model is the cheapest route to a list (roughly $0.06 per 1,000 businesses by their published examples), G Maps Extractor is about $0.95 per 1,000 records, and Outscraper, Apify and Scrap.io sit between $1.50 and $3.50 per 1,000 before their platform, contact or verification add-ons. Gmap Data is the most expensive option here, by a multiple that ranges from about 25x to more than 2,000x depending on the comparator.
Gmap Data is a fit when the unit economics of saved rows, contact evidence and a review workspace matter more than the lowest sticker price: teams that would otherwise build deduplication, provenance, verification tracking and suppression handling themselves.
A fair evaluation in one afternoon
Pick one real market
A category and an area you actually sell to, with a rough expectation of how many businesses exist there.
Run it on two or three tools
Use each tool's free tier or smallest plan. Keep the same query and area.
Compare the rows, not the interface
How many unique businesses did each return? How many duplicates? Which fields are missing? Which contacts look usable?
Do the unit maths
Convert each result to cost per 1,000 usable rows, including any surcharges and failed lookups, then decide.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
What is the best Google Maps scraper?
There is no universal answer: it depends on your pricing unit, volume, whether you need an API or extension, and how much contact evidence and workflow you need. This page gives criteria and dated observations rather than a ranking.
Is Gmap Data the cheapest option?
No. On 8 October 2026, Outscraper listed $3 per 1,000 records and the Apify Google Maps actor from $1.50 per 1,000 places, both far below Gmap Data's per-business price. Gmap Data charges only for saved, deduplicated rows and includes contact evidence and a review workspace.
Why do the prices look so different?
Because the units differ: records, places, search credits and saved businesses are not the same thing. Convert every tool to cost per 1,000 usable rows before comparing.
Do you earn affiliate commissions from these tools?
No. This page links to Gmap Data's own pages and states competitor facts from their public pages; it does not run affiliate links for the tools listed.
How should I verify a tool before buying?
Run the same real market on the free tier of two or three tools, compare unique rows, duplicates, missing fields and contact usability, then convert each result to cost per 1,000 usable rows.
Keep exploring
Related pages
Start with an invited account
Request access and we will help you size the first searches for your market.