Google Maps API vs Scraping: Which Method to Choose in 2025?

Google Maps contains 5+ million business listings. For an agency, software publisher, or prospector, it's a goldmine. But how do you extract this data without spending weeks on development?

Three paths are available to you: the official Google Maps API, creating your own script, or using a dedicated scraping tool. Each has its strengths, costs, and limitations. Let's break them down.

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TL;DR — Quick Comparison

Criteria	Google Maps API	Custom Script	IBLead
Cost for 10K contacts	€200–500+	Free (dev time)	€44
Setup Time	2–4 hours (dev)	1–2 weeks	5 minutes
Available Data	Basic	Variable	Complete (160+ techs)
Limit per Request	120 results	120 results	None
Emails Included	❌ (separate API)	❌ Often missing	✅ Enriched from the website
Google Reviews	❌	❌	✅ Scraped (text + rating + date)
Maintenance	Managed by Google	Only you	Managed by IBLead

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1. Google Maps API: Theory vs Reality

What is the Google Maps API?

The Google Maps API is Google's official tool for accessing Maps data. It includes several sub-APIs: Places API (location search), Geocoding API, Distance Matrix, etc.

To extract business listings, you will use the Places API with the "Nearby Search" request.

Advantages of the API

1. It's official — no legal risk, Google explicitly allows it
2. Comprehensive documentation — Google maintains up-to-date guides
3. Reliable — data comes directly from Google
4. Simple integration — 20 lines of Python code to get started

The process in 4 steps

Step 1: Create an API Key

Go to console.cloud.google.com, create a project, enable "Places API", set up billing, and retrieve your API key.

This takes 10 minutes, but you need a valid credit card and must accept potential charges.

Step 2: Install Python Dependencies

pip install requests pandas openpyxl

Step 3: Write the Script

import requests
import pandas as pd

API_KEY = "your-api-key"
LOCATION = "48.8566,2.3522" # Paris
RADIUS = 5000 # 5 km
CATEGORY = "restaurant"

url = "https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/nearbysearch/json"
params = {
 "location": LOCATION,
 "radius": RADIUS,
 "type": CATEGORY,
 "key": API_KEY
}

response = requests.get(url, params=params)
results = response.json()["results"]

# Extract data

data = []
for place in results:
 data.append({
 "Name": place.get("name"),
 "Address": place.get("vicinity"),
 "Rating": place.get("rating"),
 "Reviews": place.get("user_ratings_total")
 })

df = pd.DataFrame(data)
df.to_csv("restaurants_paris.csv", index=False)

Step 4: Run the Request

This takes 2 seconds. You get a CSV file with 20 restaurants.

The Real Limitations of the Google Maps API

Limit 1: 120 Results per Request

This is the major limitation. Each Nearby Search request returns a maximum of 120 results.

Are you looking for "all the restaurants in Paris"? Google has 8,000+. The API gives you 120.

To work around this, you need to:

• Divide Paris into a grid (1 km × 1 km squares)
• Make a request for each square
• Merge the results (with a risk of duplicates)

Result: for 8,000 restaurants, you make 67 requests. At €0.32 per request (see pricing), it costs €21 just for one city.

Limit 2: Missing Data

The Google Maps API does not return:

• Emails (you need to use another API or a third-party enrichers)
• Complete reviews (text, date, author)
• Website technologies (WordPress, Shopify, etc.)
• SIRET/SIREN data (France)

To get emails, you have to go through the Places Details API (additional cost) or a enrichment service (even more expensive).

Limit 3: Pricing Can Skyrocket

Google offers €200 in free credits per month. Beyond that, it’s pay-as-you-go.

Here are the official rates (in USD, converted to €):

Request	Cost
Nearby Search	€0.32 per request
Place Details	€0.17 per request
Text Search	€0.32 per request

Realistic Example: You want to extract 10,000 restaurants in France.

• Dividing into grids: ~83 Nearby Search requests = €26.56
• Retrieving details (emails, reviews): 10,000 × €0.17 = €1,700
• Total: €1,726.56 for 10,000 contacts

With IBLead, it’s €44/month for 10,000 credits (= 10,000 contacts). 49 times cheaper.

Limit 4: Maintenance is on You

If Google changes its API (which happens), you fix your script. No support, no help. You need to:

• Monitor Google’s changelogs
• Adapt your code
• Test again
• Redeploy

With IBLead, we handle that for you.

Limit 5: Strict Rate Limiting

Google limits you to ~1 request per second. For 10,000 requests, it takes 2-3 hours of non-stop execution.

If you get an error on request 9,500, you have to restart. No automatic recovery.

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2. Custom Scripts: The False Economy

The Concept

Instead of using the official API, you scrape directly the DOM of Google Maps. You open the browser, scroll, click on each listing, and extract the data.

Low-Code Tools

Tools like Make (formerly Integromat), Zapier, n8n, or even Selenium + Python allow you to do this without "really" coding.

Example with n8n:

1. Open Google Maps
2. Scroll the list (left side)
3. Click on each listing
4. Extract the visible text
5. Save as CSV

Advantages

1. Zero cost — no API billing
2. More data — you can scrape reviews, photos, full hours
3. Flexible — you can adapt the script to your needs

The Real Limitations

Limit 1: Google Maps Detects and Blocks

Google detection of bots that scroll too fast. After 50-100 clicks, you get temporarily blocked (24 hours sometimes).

Solution: slow down the script (add random delays). But that multiplies execution time by 10.

Limit 2: Still Limited to ~120 Visible Results

Even by scrolling, Google Maps only displays 120 listings max per search. The problem persists.

To get more, you need to change the search (e.g., "French restaurants", "Asian restaurants", etc.) and merge. Heavy.

Limit 3: Data is Incomplete by Default

Google Maps displays:

• Name, address, phone
• Rating, number of reviews
• Hours (partial)
• Website (link, not email)

Complete reviews (text + date + author), website technologies, enriched emails: you have to find them elsewhere.

Limit 4: Ongoing Maintenance

Google changes its interface every 3-6 months. Your script breaks. You need to fix it.

Clients: "Why are my data no longer up to date?" You: "Google changed its HTML, I need to recode."

Limit 5: Huge Development Time

A simple script: 2-3 hours. A robust script (error handling, retry, logging, export): 1-2 weeks.

Real cost (in time): €500–2,000 in development.

Limit 6: No Legal Support

Google does not like bots. The ToS explicitly prohibit scraping.

Risk: your Google account gets banned, your IP gets blacklisted, or Google sends a cease & desist.

With a legal tool like IBLead, you don’t have this risk.

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3. IBLead: The Scalable Alternative

What is IBLead?

IBLead is a pre-indexed database of 50M+ business listings in 37 countries. No need to scrape, the data is already extracted, cleaned, and updated monthly.

You search by city, region, country, category, then export to CSV with emails, phones, reviews, detected technologies.

The Process in 2 Minutes

1. Go to app.iblead.com/register
2. Create a free account (200 credits included)
3. Search "restaurants, Paris"
4. Filter (min rating, number of reviews, website, etc.)
5. Export to CSV/Excel
6. Receive the data in 10 seconds

Zero code. Zero maintenance. Zero blocks.

Included Data (without additional API)

Each IBLead export contains:

• Basic info: name, address, phone, website
• Enriched emails: extracted from the website, not just the contact form
• Google Maps: rating, number of reviews, claimed listing or not
• Complete reviews: text, rating, date, author (EXCLUSIVE — no one else does this)
• Detected technologies: WordPress, Shopify, WooCommerce, Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, HubSpot, Mailchimp, etc. (160+ techs)
• Social media: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube
• Complete opening hours
• Photos (number and URLs)
• SIRET/SIREN/APE (France only, automatically matched)

IBLead Pricing vs Google Maps API

Volume	Google Maps API	IBLead	Saving
10,000	€200–1,700	€44	49–48x cheaper
20,000	€400–3,400	€89	62–61x cheaper
50,000	€1,000–8,500	€179	86–85x cheaper
100,000	€2,000–17,000	€449	68–68x cheaper

Note: The Google Maps API figures include Nearby Search + Place Details to get emails.

Key Advantages of IBLead

1. Zero Result Limits

Searching for "all plumbers in France"? IBLead gives you all plumbers in France in a single export. No 120 limit.

With the Google Maps API, this is impossible without splitting into 100+ requests.

2. Scraped Google Reviews (EXCLUSIVE)

IBLead is the only tool that scrapes Google reviews: full text, rating, date, author.

Use cases:

• Reputation agencies: find clients with a rating < 3 stars
• Prospecting: "I saw your review from January 15, you had a problem with..."
• Market analysts: study satisfaction by sector

3. Detection of 160+ Technologies (EXCLUSIVE)

Automatically detects if a listing uses WordPress, Shopify, WooCommerce, React, Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, HubSpot, Mailchimp, etc.

Use cases:

• Web agencies: "You are using an old WordPress 5.2, we can modernize you"
• SEO agencies: target businesses without Google Analytics
• SaaS: find all HubSpot users to contact them

4. Automatic SIRET Matching (France)

For the French market, IBLead automatically matches each listing with:

• SIRET, SIREN, APE code
• Name of the manager
• Legal form
• Date of creation

Perfect for B2B prospectors who need legal data.

5. All Features from €44/month

With IBLead (the main competitor), advanced filters (Google rating, number of reviews, claimed listing) cost €199/month minimum.

With IBLead, everything is included starting at €44/month.

6. Country-Wide Search Included

With IBLead, searching by country = €499/month.

With IBLead, it’s included in the Starter at €44/month.

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4. Detailed Comparison: Features

Feature	Google Maps API	Custom Script	IBLead
Search by City	✅	✅	✅
Search by Region	❌	❌	✅
Search Entire Country	❌	❌	✅
Filter by Google Rating	✅ (limited)	✅	✅
Filter by Number of Reviews	✅ (limited)	✅	✅
Filter by Website	❌	✅	✅
Filter by Email	❌	✅	✅
Enriched Emails	❌ (separate API)	Partial	✅ Complete
Complete Google Reviews	❌	❌	✅ EXCLUSIVE
Technology Detection	❌	❌	✅ EXCLUSIVE (160+)
SIRET/SIREN (FR)	❌	❌	✅ EXCLUSIVE
Social Media	❌	Partial	✅ Complete
Complete Hours	Partial	Partial	✅ Complete
Photos	❌	✅	✅ URLs included
Result Limit	120	120	None
Maintenance	Google manages	Only you	IBLead manages
Support	Documentation	None	Email + chat
Cost for 10K	€200–1,700	Free (time)	€44

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5. Where IBLead Wins

Advantage 1: Real Cost 49x Cheaper

For 10,000 contacts with the same data (emails, ratings, reviews):

• Google Maps API: €1,700 (Nearby Search + Place Details)
• IBLead: €44

Even with free dev time, the custom script costs €500–2,000 in hours and remains limited to 120 results.

Advantage 2: Exclusive Data

Only IBLead scrapes:

1. Complete Google Reviews (text + rating + date + author)
2. 160+ Detected Technologies (WordPress, Shopify, etc.)
3. SIRET Matching (France)

No direct competitor does this. With the Google Maps API, it’s technically impossible.

Advantage 3: Zero Result Limits

Need 50,000 restaurants? IBLead gives them to you in one export.

The Google Maps API: 417 requests ×