Collectors · Local & Maps

Google Maps scraper API in Python

Businesses for a keyword in a location — name, rating, address, phone, website, coordinates. One POST from Python with query and location, rows back as JSON with 21 fields, $0.001 per delivered place. No proxies or parsers to maintain.

Get an API key See the collector

A Python requests snippet that posts { — A Python requests call to the google_maps_places collector returns one dict per place, at $0.001 each.

First call

Install, call, read the rows.

pip install requests

The only dependency.

import os, requests

r = requests.post(
    "https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/google_maps_places/run",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['QD_API_KEY']}"},
    json={
        "query": "pizza restaurants",
        "location": "Brooklyn, NY",
        "country": "us",
        "max_results": 20,
    },
    timeout=120,
)
r.raise_for_status()
run = r.json()["payload"]
print(run["count"], "rows,", run["cost"]["usd"], "USD")
for row in run["results"]:
    print(row.get("name"), row.get("rating"), row.get("reviews"), row.get("category"))

Python: one Google Maps places run (Pizza in Brooklyn), printing name, rating, reviews, category

The key comes from an environment variable, never from the code. The run answers in the same request when it finishes in time; payload.results holds the rows and payload.cost what they cost.

Request parameters

What the collector takes.

Input of the Google Maps places collector
Parameter	Type	Required	Meaning
`query`	string	yes	Business type or keyword, e.g. "pizza restaurants", "dentist".
`location`	string	yes	City / area / address, e.g. "Brooklyn, NY" or "Milano".
`country`	string	no	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code — proxy exit geo and Google locale (gl). Omit for the default pool.
`lang`	string	no	Interface language (hl), e.g. en, it, de.
`max_results`	integer	no (default 20)	How many places to deliver at most (1–300). You pay only for delivered places.
`enrich_details`	boolean	no (default true)	Look each place up to fill the weekly opening hours and the review count when Google's list leaves them out. Same price per place; set false for the list fields only (faster).

Response fields

21 fields per place.

Fields of each row (place)
Field	Type	What it holds
`rank`	integer	1-based position across the merged pages.
`name`	string	Business name.
`rating`	number, nullable	Star rating (1–5).
`reviews`	integer, nullable	Review count.
`category`	string, nullable	Google category, e.g. "Pizza restaurant".
`price_level`	string, nullable	Price level as shown ($$, $10–20).
`address`	string, nullable	Street address as shown.
`phone`	string, nullable	Phone number as shown.
`website`	string, nullable	Website URL or domain.
`hours`	string, nullable	Opening hours as text, "Monday: 9 AM–5 PM; Tuesday: …" (one day only when the weekly table is not available).
`weekly_hours`	object, nullable	Opening hours per day, {"Monday": "9 AM–5 PM", …}, in the run's language.
`open_state`	string, nullable	Live state as shown at run time ("Open · Closes 11 pm").
`service_options`	string, nullable	Dine-in · Takeout · Delivery…
`thumbnail`	string, nullable	Photo thumbnail URL.
`maps_url`	string, nullable	Google Maps link.
`latitude`	number, nullable	GPS latitude.
`longitude`	number, nullable	GPS longitude.
`place_id`	string, nullable	Google place id (ChIJ… or 0x…:0x…).
`data_id`	string, nullable	Feature id 0x…:0x… — input for Place reviews.
`description`	string, nullable	Editorial blurb when Google shows one.
`found_by`	string	The Google query that surfaced this place.

Add ?format=csv to the runs endpoint to get the same rows as CSV.

Long runs

Run in the background, then poll.

A run that needs more time can go to the background: send "async": true, get 202 with the run id, and poll the runs endpoint until the status is done. Reading a run is free.

import os, time, requests

H = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['QD_API_KEY']}"}
r = requests.post("https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/google_maps_places/run", headers=H,
                  json={**{"query":"pizza restaurants","location":"Brooklyn, NY","country":"us","max_results":20}, "async": True}, timeout=30)
run_id = r.json()["payload"]["run_id"]
while True:
    run = requests.get(f"https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/runs/{run_id}", headers=H, timeout=30).json()["payload"]
    if run["status"] in ("done", "failed"):
        break
    time.sleep(5)
print(run["status"], run["count"])

Python: background run and polling

Errors

What can come back, and what is billed.

Collector run errors
Status	Meaning	Billed
`400`	The input does not match the collector (`payload.errors`)	No
`401`	Missing or wrong API key	No
`402`	Balance and free credit do not cover the run: top up	No
`422`	The input can never resolve; retrying the same input cannot help	No
`424`	The run failed at the source (blocked, timed out, layout changed); safe to retry	No
`429`	Rate limit or a per-account brake; wait for `Retry-After`	No

Only delivered rows are billed: a run that delivers nothing costs nothing.

Price

$0.001 per delivered place.

What Google Maps places rows cost at list price
Rows	Cost
1	$0.001
1,000	$1.00
10,000	$10.00

Up to 300 places per run; split larger jobs into several runs. The $2 free credit every month covers about 2,000 places. No subscription; paid tiers lower the unit price. All collector prices: collector pricing.

Before you run it

Questions developers ask

Is there a free Google Maps places API?

Every account gets $2 of free usage each month, about 2,000 places of this collector at $0.001 each, with no card.

Do I have to handle proxies, retries or blocks?

No. The collector runs on our network and handles them; a run blocked at the source returns 424 and is not billed.

How many rows can one run return?

Up to 300 places per run (the max_results input, where the collector has one).

Can an AI agent run it?

Yes: the MCP server exposes it as the run_collector tool, with the same input and price. See the MCP server.

Run it on the free credit.

Create an API key, export it as QD_API_KEY and run the example. $0.001 per delivered place, no subscription.

Get an API key Google Maps scraper API