A MapTiler alternative with one price per month

Pricing compared

MapTiler's Flex plan is $30 a month and includes 25,000 sessions and 500,000 tile requests. Which unit applies depends on the library you use, so both are shown. List prices, November 2026.

Session overage is $2.50 per 1,000; request overage is $0.15 per 1,000. The request figures assume MapTiler's own estimate of 4 vector tile requests per map view, which covers the first screen only; a user who pans and zooms generates many more. MapTiler Custom plans are not published. ExpressMaps plans: Free 100,000 loads; Essential $29 for 250,000; Business $99 for 1,000,000; Enterprise $399 for 5,000,000, then $0.05 per 1,000. One map load is one map initialisation; tiles, panning and zooming are not metered. Prices checked 12 November 2026 and may have changed; see the cost calculator for your own numbers.

How the billing differs

A MapTiler session starts when a page with a map opens and includes unlimited tiles for up to 6 hours, but only when you use the MapTiler SDK or its Leaflet plugin. Use MapLibre, OpenLayers or plain Leaflet instead and you are billed per tile request: one per vector tile, four per 512-pixel raster tile. That is cheap for a static first view and expensive for a map people explore.

ExpressMaps counts one map load per map initialisation whatever library you use, and never counts tiles. A visitor who zooms around a city for ten minutes costs the same as one who glances at the map, and the monthly plan is a flat figure you can budget for.

What stays the same

• MapLibre GL JS with a style URL, so the switch is one line.
• OpenStreetMap data in the OpenMapTiles schema. Custom styles written for MapTiler's OpenMapTiles-based styles work with source-layer names intact; only the source URL and sprite and glyph URLs change.
• Vector tiles, fonts and sprites served from a CDN with CORS enabled.

What MapTiler does that we do not

• Many more styles, including satellite, terrain, hillshade and 3D, and a visual style editor.
• Geocoding, static maps and weather layers as paid APIs. We do not offer static map images or weather layers, and our search is intended for display maps.
• Self-hosted MapTiler Server and the ability to upload your own datasets.

MapTiler is the broader platform. ExpressMaps is the simpler, cheaper choice when what you need is a good-looking base map with predictable billing.

Switching from MapTiler

Change the style URL and drop the MapTiler SDK in favour of plain MapLibre if you were using it:

<!-- before (MapTiler SDK) -->
maptilersdk.config.apiKey = 'YOUR_MAPTILER_KEY';
var map = new maptilersdk.Map({ container: 'map', style: maptilersdk.MapStyle.STREETS, center: [-0.1276, 51.5072], zoom: 12 });

<!-- after (MapLibre GL JS) -->
<script src="https://unpkg.com/maplibre-gl@4.7.1/dist/maplibre-gl.js"></script>
var map = new maplibregl.Map({ container: 'map', style: 'https://tiles.expressmaps.com/styles/standard.json?key=YOUR_API_KEY', center: [-0.1276, 51.5072], zoom: 12 });

The embed generator writes this for any of our ten styles, and the docs cover Leaflet, OpenLayers and React.

Questions people ask

Do I have to show a logo on the map?

No. OpenStreetMap attribution is required by the data licence and is included in the style; there is no ExpressMaps logo requirement on any plan.

What happens when I exceed the free quota?

Both pause the free plan until the next month. On ExpressMaps you get an email first, and starting a paid plan re-enables the maps immediately; paid plans also have a 30-day grace period and roll unused loads forward.

Is the map data as fresh?

Both services rebuild from OpenStreetMap. MapTiler updates its planet tiles weekly; ours are rebuilt on a slower schedule, which suits store locators and contact maps more than mapping new construction. Ask us if you need a specific region refreshed.

Start free with 100,000 loads See the live demo