Wherebox
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Fair use

The hosted Wherebox service is free for everyone. To keep it that way, each account gets a monthly allowance and a few limits that protect the service for all users. Most sites and apps never come close: a locator map is rendered once and then served from the cache, and cached maps never count.

The limits#

Every account Raised on request
Renders per month (UTC) 10,000 100,000
of which routed (car, bike, foot) 1,000 10,000
Requests per minute 60 300
Largest image (width × height × scale²) 4.2 MP (e.g. 2048 × 2048 px) 16.8 MP (e.g. 4096 × 4096 px)
Road routing included included

Limits apply to the account: all of its API keys and connected AI assistants share them. Creating more keys does not raise them.

What counts#

  • A render is a map that had to be drawn because no identical image was in the cache. Requesting the same map again (same parameters) is a cache hit and is free, also after you reach the limit.
  • A routed render is a render with a road route (profile car, bike or foot). Routing takes much more server time, so it has its own, smaller allowance inside the monthly one. Straight and geodesic lines (profile=straight, profile=geodesic) are not counted separately.
  • Requests per minute count every authenticated request, including searches and cache hits.

The Usage page in your account shows where you stand. Every rendered response also carries X-Quota-Remaining.

When you reach a limit#

  • Monthly allowance: new renders are refused with 429 quota-exceeded until the 1st of next month (UTC). Maps you have already rendered keep working, because they are served from the cache. If only the routed allowance is used up, maps with straight or geodesic lines still render.
  • Requests per minute: 429 rate-limited with Retry-After. Wait and retry.
  • Image size: 403 plan-limit. Ask for a smaller image, or a lower scale.

The error's detail says which limit was hit and, on the hosted service, where to ask for more.

Need more?#

Higher allowances are free too; they are granted by hand for legitimate projects. Email [email protected] with the subject "Higher Wherebox limit" and tell us:

  1. the email address of your Wherebox account,
  2. what you are building, with a link if it is public,
  3. roughly how many new maps you expect per month, and how many of them with road routes (car, bike, foot),
  4. whether you need larger images or more requests per minute.

The Ask for a higher limit link on your account's Usage page opens this email with your account details already filled in. We usually answer within a few working days. Meanwhile, keep your URLs stable so repeated views are cache hits, which never count (see caching).

Please don't#

  • open several accounts to get around the limits (one account per person or organization; a team shares one),
  • download or scrape the search endpoints in bulk, or use the service as a bulk tile or image proxy,
  • send load that degrades the service for others.

Accounts that break these rules may be throttled, suspended or closed. Usually you hear from us first, with a chance to fix things; we act without notice only to stop harm to the service or to others. If you think we got it wrong, reply to that email or write to [email protected] and a person will look at it again. The limits may change over time; this page always shows the current numbers.

Report abuse#

Seen Wherebox used for spam, scraping or anything harmful? Email [email protected] with the subject "Abuse report" and include the URLs or request IDs (the requestId in error responses, or the X-Request-Id header) you saw.