Mapbox went insane
Last month my Mapbox bill was $39. A couple of days ago Mapbox sent users an email stating that they were adopting a "fair" pricing model. (I'm paraphrasing). And that all customers will be forced into it in November 2019. They went further to explain that 75% of users will see a decrease in their bill and 25% would see a "small" increase. They said you can wait until November or you can opt-in now, but you won't be able to otp-out if you do.
So, I'm thinking I'm a small user (1.8M tiles per month) and as such, I most likely will see a decrease. I opted-in.
Two days later, that would be today, my billing cycle closed and they billed me retroactively at the new rate. $444.75! That is an increase of 1140%. I wonder what they would call a large increase?
Needless to say, I have removed my credit card from my Mapbox account and I deactivated my usage tokens, lodged a complaint with their support team, and started looking for a new provider of map tiles.
I found one. https://www.maptiler.com My bill with them will be around $110. I'll take it.
I will work on learning how to self-host map tiles so that this will never happen again. I heard Google did this last year to much the same result - hugely increased prices under the guise of fairness and clarity.
UPDATE: 2019-07-31
Mapbox hasn't offered to refund any of the "overcharge". They have offered 2 months free.
Most important right now is to get the maps back up where the users can use them. So it's Mapbox GL for the time being. Next on this subject will be learning how to self-host the map tiles myself.
There are open-source tiles available. The learning curve will be the hosting. I think I may be able to self-host and use Mapbox GL to display them.
So, I'm thinking I'm a small user (1.8M tiles per month) and as such, I most likely will see a decrease. I opted-in.
Two days later, that would be today, my billing cycle closed and they billed me retroactively at the new rate. $444.75! That is an increase of 1140%. I wonder what they would call a large increase?
Needless to say, I have removed my credit card from my Mapbox account and I deactivated my usage tokens, lodged a complaint with their support team, and started looking for a new provider of map tiles.
I found one. https://www.maptiler.com My bill with them will be around $110. I'll take it.
I will work on learning how to self-host map tiles so that this will never happen again. I heard Google did this last year to much the same result - hugely increased prices under the guise of fairness and clarity.
UPDATE: 2019-07-31
Mapbox hasn't offered to refund any of the "overcharge". They have offered 2 months free.
Most important right now is to get the maps back up where the users can use them. So it's Mapbox GL for the time being. Next on this subject will be learning how to self-host the map tiles myself.
There are open-source tiles available. The learning curve will be the hosting. I think I may be able to self-host and use Mapbox GL to display them.
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