agentbeacon

Comparisons · Local business data APIs · read on October 15, 2026

AgentBeacon vs Google Places API for AI agents

Google Places API is a paid Google Maps Platform web service that returns place data (search, details, photos, autocomplete) from Google Maps. AgentBeacon is built on beacons, each a few plain words about what someone has or needs right now, live while they renew it. Each result is one, with the employer’s Apply link for a hiring beacon or an address to message a business’s through AgentBeacon. It needs no key.

The short answer

  • Google Places API: The broadest, freshest global place data, with ratings, reviews, hours and photos, for teams that can pay per call and follow Google's display rules.
  • AgentBeacon: Giving an agent a job to apply for or a home-service business to message, with no key.

AgentBeacon covers far less today: jobs in Austin, Texas, and remote, and businesses in and around Austin. Where it has what the agent is looking for, it is free and needs no sign-up.

Google Places API and AgentBeacon, side by side

Google Places APIAgentBeacon
SearchesPlaces worldwide from Google Maps: businesses, points of interest, addresses, through Text Search, Nearby Search, Place Details and Autocomplete.Hiring beacons from employers’ own job boards (Austin, Texas, and remote) and home-service businesses around Austin
ReturnsJSON. You pick fields with a field mask, and the most expensive field you ask for sets the price tier (Essentials, Pro, Enterprise). Fields include place ID, name, address, location, phone numbers, website, hours, ratings, photos and reviews.Plain Markdown, one beacon per result: its own words, quoted, when it was updated, until when it’s open, and where it was seeded from. Typed JSON on request.
Before the first callA Google Cloud project with billing enabled, plus an API key or OAuth token.One empty request to /v1/connect, which returns a token. No account, email or card.
FreeA free monthly usage cap for each SKU: 5,000 Text Search Pro or Nearby Search Pro calls, 1,000 at the Enterprise tier, 10,000 Place Details Essentials, and unlimited ID-only searches. The pricing page does not mention the old $200 monthly credit.Free: 600 finds a minute and 20,000 a day for each connected agent
PaidText Search Pro and Nearby Search Pro cost $32 per 1,000 calls (up to 100,000 a month). Enterprise, the tier that includes phone and website, costs $35 per 1,000. Place Details Pro costs $17 per 1,000.Free for agents
Acting on a resultPhone numbers and website are Enterprise-tier fields. There is no way to message a business through the API.A hiring beacon has the employer’s Apply link; every other beacon is messaged through AgentBeacon, and the business replies there. A business that hasn’t taken over the beacon AgentBeacon seeded for it isn’t told, so a message to it waits 30 days.
Limits on keeping or showing resultsNo pre-fetching, caching or storing beyond the stated exceptions. Place IDs may be stored indefinitely, and latitude/longitude for up to 30 days. Results may be shown without a map, but then the Google logo is required. When shown on a map it must be a Google Map, never a non-Google map.Agents read beacons and message them; the terms say reading one doesn’t give the right to reuse it freely.
AI in its termsThe Maps Platform Terms forbid using Google Maps Content to improve ML or AI models, including to train, test, validate or fine-tune them. Grounding an LLM is allowed only through Maps Grounding Lite, which requires source links and forbids using Grounded Output to train models.Built for AI agents. An agent may act only with its owner’s permission, and the terms don’t let AgentBeacon train AI models on what businesses write.
CoverageWorldwide (Google Maps place data).Hiring in Austin, Texas, and remote; home services around Austin, for now
MCP serverMaps Grounding Lite, a Google-hosted MCP endpoint at https://mapstools.googleapis.com/mcp (tools include search_places). Docs: https://developers.google.com/maps/ai/grounding-litehttps://api.agentbeacon.sh/mcp/search, with no sign-in

Try AgentBeacon

Connect, then find:

curl https://api.agentbeacon.sh/v1/connect \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data-binary '{}'
curl -G https://api.agentbeacon.sh/v1/beacons \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AGENTBEACON_TOKEN" \
  --data-urlencode "q=plumber near Austin, TX"

Or let the JavaScript client connect for you. The Python client, agentbeacon-sdk, works the same way.

npm install @agentbeacon/sdk

import { find } from "@agentbeacon/sdk";
console.log(await find("plumber near Austin, TX"));

Agent apps that take MCP servers can add https://api.agentbeacon.sh/mcp/search, which needs no sign-in. The local businesses docs have the full code, every parameter and each line of the answer.

One result, as it read on October 15, 2026:

## Wilson Plumbing, plumber in Austin, TX 78751
> Wilson Plumbing, plumber in Austin, TX 78751.
Expires Nov 7, 18:00 CST · Updated yesterday
Location: 30.2672, -97.7431, sent yesterday
Verification (agentbeacon.sh): Seeded by AgentBeacon from public data: Meta via Overture Maps, CDLA-Permissive-2.0. Read again each month. Its business isn’t on AgentBeacon yet: a message waits 30 days for it to join.
Link: https://agentbeacon.sh/beacon/c705c92b-8d0d-4b03-8bbb-aa9442843ec5

What AgentBeacon doesn’t do yet

  • Jobs come from the job boards of a growing list of companies, in Austin and remote.
  • Businesses are in Austin, Texas, for now.
  • It shows no phone numbers or websites: a business is reached by messaging its beacon through AgentBeacon.

Questions people ask

What do I need before I can use AgentBeacon?

One empty request to /v1/connect, which returns a token. No account, email or card.

Is AgentBeacon free?

Free: 600 finds a minute and 20,000 a day for each connected agent.

What do I need before I can use Google Places API?

A Google Cloud project with billing enabled, plus an API key or OAuth token.

Is Google Places API free?

A free monthly usage cap for each SKU: 5,000 Text Search Pro or Nearby Search Pro calls, 1,000 at the Enterprise tier, 10,000 Place Details Essentials, and unlimited ID-only searches. The pricing page does not mention the old $200 monthly credit.

Sources

Every line about another company comes from its own pages. Prices and terms change, so check the source before you rely on one.

Google Places API, read on October 15, 2026: