Bullseye's Guide to Mapping Options
Bullseye Locations is able to provide Google or Mapbox maps for your interfaces by using their APIs to connect to their services. An API is more or less a middle-man, that allows our application to talk to theirs. Bullseye Locations uses these APIs throughout our software everywhere you see a map in either the Admin or in an interface.
Getting Your Own Mapping Keys
Both Google and Mapbox provide keys to use the API for drawing maps. Getting a key is easy, and in most cases provides a free or economical option for maps. Check out our Knowledge Base articles for more information on how to:
API Key Pricing
At the time of this writing, Google offers a $200/month credit for API usage, meaning you can get up to 28,500 requests/month for free. You can learn more about Google’s pricing on Google’s Cloud Platform pricing page.
Mapbox offers 50,000 free requests each for maps and geocoding per month. Mapbox pricing information is available from the pricing page of their website.
Using Bullseye’s Integrated Google or Mapbox Maps
Bullseye also offers the option to use our integrated key. Using our key, you don’t need to create your own key or token, and you’ll be billed by Bullseye Locations for usage of the key, according to Google or Mapbox rates. You can view our current volume based pricing on our Volume Discount Tiers and Standard Rates page.
A quick note about Google maps vs. Mapbox maps - Google maps are great and have been the standard for many years. If you can afford it or can keep within Google’s Free quota, Google Maps are a great option. Mapbox is a newer mapping service. They are well funded and use data provided by the Open Street Map project. They offer an excellent product particularly in the US and Canada, at a much more affordable price. The choice is up to you, and we are confident that either choice results in a excellent result.