Setting up a billing account for Google Maps
Stockist works together with Google's mapping services to power your store locator.
Google's services have a generous free tier, and 99% of Stockist clients use less than the free limit. However, Google may ask you to link a payment method to your existing Google account in order to use the free Google Maps services on your site.
After following the steps below, you may also want to set up usage quotas and billing alerts with Google for additional peace of mind.
Link a payment method to your Google account
Follow these steps to link a payment method to your Google Maps API key:
- Ensure you're logged into the Google account you originally used to create your Google Maps API key.
- Visit the Google API Console Billing page.
- If you already see a billing account listed that you'd like to use, skip to step 6.
- If you don't see any billing accounts listed, click Add billing account:
-
A form will open. Fill out your business information and payment details in this form, then save the page.
-
Open the Google Maps services overview page.
-
Ensure that the project selection dropdown at the top of the page is displaying the name of the project that contains the Google Maps key you initially created when setting up Stockist on your website
-
Then, click the menu icon in the top left of the page and click on the Billing link:
-
On the Billing page, click Link a billing account:
- In the popup that appears, click Set Account. If there are multiple available billing accounts, ensure you pick the one you just created in step 4:
Once these steps are complete, your billing account has been set up and your store locator will display without interruption.
You may also want to set up usage quotas and billing alerts with Google to ensure you don't incur unexpected charges.