SiteVerdict — Local Business Leads (Google Places API + OpenStreetMap)

Lists of local businesses (name, category, address, phone, website, rating, opening hours) from official sources only: the Google Places API with your own key, and OpenStreetMap open data.

Type plumbers in Bristol, cafes near PL1 1AA or dentists in Leeds. You get a clean table you can filter, export to CSV/Excel or send to your CRM.

• OpenStreetMap mode works out of the box. It needs no key and the data is open (ODbL), so you can store it and reuse it with attribution.
• Google mode uses the official Places API (New) with your own Google Maps Platform key. It never scrapes google.com, never runs a headless browser against Google and never rotates proxies.

Built by SiteVerdict (BharatFare Travel and Technologies Ltd, UK).

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Why an API-based Actor instead of a Google Maps scraper?

	Scraping google.com/maps	This Actor
How data is fetched	Headless browser plus proxies, parsing Google's HTML	Google's official Places API (New) with your key, plus OpenStreetMap's public APIs
Reliability	Breaks when Google changes the page, and blocks and CAPTCHAs slow runs	Documented, versioned JSON APIs with clear error codes
Terms	Breaches Google's Terms of Service (automated access to the consumer site)	Google: you are a Google Maps Platform customer using the API as documented. OSM: open licence.
Cost control	Pay per place, but the scrape can stall	Up-front cost estimate, a hard budget cap and Google's free monthly usage
Data you can keep	Unclear	OSM: keep it with attribution (ODbL). Google: place IDs can be kept forever; most other Google content cannot be stored (see Compliance).

The trade-off: Google's API returns at most 60 places per search area and 5 reviews per place, and it does not return e-mails or "popular times". This Actor covers big areas with a grid search (below). It does not try to get around Google's limits.

Who it is for

• Agencies and freelancers building prospect lists, such as "accountants without a website in Bath".
• Sales and partnerships teams that need local SMB lists with phone numbers and websites.
• Market research: how many vets, gyms or cafés are in an area, with ratings (Google) or opening hours (OSM).
• Developers and AI agents that need a compliant local-business lookup step in a workflow.

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Quick start

1. Free: OpenStreetMap (no key)

{ "queries": ["cafes in Plymouth", "hairdressers in Exeter"], "countryCode": "gb" }

2. Google Places API with your key, with a budget cap

{
  "queries": ["plumbers in Bristol"],
  "source": "google",
  "googleApiKey": "<your key>",
  "googleFieldPreset": "contact",
  "googleBudgetUsd": 5,
  "hasWebsite": true
}

3. Check the Google cost first (dry run, no Google calls)

{ "queries": ["dentists in Manchester"], "source": "google", "googleDryRun": true }

The estimate is saved in the key-value store as GOOGLE_COST_ESTIMATE. Without a key, Google searches always run as a dry run.

4. Your own area: point and radius, bounding box or polygon

{ "queries": ["restaurants"], "lat": "51.5136", "lng": "-0.1365", "radiusMeters": 1500, "source": "both", "googleApiKey": "<your key>" }

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What you get (one row per business)

Field	Google	OSM	Notes
source, sourceId	yes	yes	google:<place_id> or osm:node/123
placeId / osmType + osmId	yes	yes	Stable IDs used for de-duplication
name, primaryCategory, categories	yes	yes	Google types / OSM tags such as craft=plumber
address, street, houseNumber, city, postcode, region, country, countryCode	yes	when tagged	OSM addresses depend on local mappers
lat, lng	yes	yes	Google: delete or refresh within 30 days (see latLngCacheExpiresAt)
phone (national), phoneInternational	Contact preset	when tagged	OSM phones are normalised with libphonenumber
website, domain, hasWebsite	Contact preset	when tagged	domain is the registrable domain (e.g. example.co.uk)
googleMapsUrl / osmUrl	yes	yes	Link to the source listing
rating, reviewCount, priceLevel	Contact preset	—	OSM has no ratings
openingHours, openNow	Contact preset	openingHours / openingHoursRaw
businessStatus	yes	closed if tagged	OPERATIONAL, CLOSED_TEMPORARILY, CLOSED_PERMANENTLY
description	Atmosphere preset	when tagged
reviews (max 5)	opt-in	—	Reviewer names are a separate opt-in (personal data)
email	—	opt-in	Off by default (UK GDPR/PECR, see below)
attribution, license, termsNotice	yes	yes	Keep these with the data

The dataset has three views: Businesses, Lead list (CRM-friendly columns) and Hours, ratings and status. The key-value store has these records:

• RUN_SUMMARY: counts, filter rejections, Google requests per SKU and spend.
• GOOGLE_COST_ESTIMATE
• AGENCY_LEAD_FINDER_INPUT, when you enable that output.

Sample: real OpenStreetMap row (Plymouth city centre, 11 Oct 2026)

{
  "source": "osm", "sourceId": "osm:node/3435845294", "osmType": "node", "osmId": 3435845294,
  "name": "Daisy's Tea Rooms and Coffee Shop", "primaryCategory": "Cafe", "categories": ["amenity=cafe"],
  "address": "6 Harbour Avenue, Plymouth, PL4 0BJ", "postcode": "PL4 0BJ", "countryCode": "GB",
  "lat": 50.3705471, "lng": -4.1318398, "phoneInternational": "+44 1752 257933",
  "osmUrl": "https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/3435845294",
  "attribution": "© OpenStreetMap contributors", "license": "ODbL-1.0 (https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright)"
}

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Using your own Google Maps Platform key (about 5 minutes)

1. Go to console.cloud.google.com and create a project, for example "lead-lists".
2. Open Billing and link a billing account. Google requires one even if you stay within the free monthly usage.
3. Open APIs & Services → Library, search for "Places API (New)" and click Enable. This Actor uses the New API (places.googleapis.com), not the legacy Places API.
4. Open APIs & Services → Credentials → Create credentials → API key. Then click Edit API key:
   • API restrictions → Restrict key → Places API (New) only.
   • Application restrictions: Apify runs come from changing IP addresses, so IP restrictions usually do not work. Keep this key only for this Actor and rotate it if it leaks.
5. Set a budget alert: open Billing → Budgets & alerts → Create budget (for example £20/month) and set e-mail alerts at 50%, 90% and 100%. Google budgets alert but do not stop spending.
6. Hard limit (recommended): open APIs & Services → Places API (New) → Quotas and lower the per-day request quotas to a level you are comfortable with. Requests above the quota fail with RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED. This Actor treats that as a clean stop.
7. Paste the key into "Google Maps Platform API key". It is a secret input: Apify stores it encrypted, and this Actor never logs it or writes it to the output.

Common errors, in plain English:

• PERMISSION_DENIED / SERVICE_DISABLED: Places API (New) is not enabled, or billing is off.
• API_KEY_INVALID: the key is wrong or deleted.
• RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED: you have hit a quota. The Actor backs off with exponential delays, then stops cleanly.

What Google charges you (list prices, checked 11 Oct 2026)

Google bills each request at the SKU of the most expensive field you ask for. The field preset you choose decides the SKU:

Preset	Fields	Text Search SKU	USD per 1,000 requests	Free requests / month
IDs only	place ID	Text Search Essentials (IDs Only)	$0	unlimited
Basic	name, address, location, types, Maps link, status	Text Search Pro	$32	5,000
Contact (default)	+ phone, website, rating, reviews count, price level, hours	Text Search Enterprise	$35	1,000
Atmosphere, or any preset with reviews	+ editorial summary, reviews	Text Search Enterprise + Atmosphere	$40	1,000

Other requests:

• Place Details (the "Refresh stored place IDs" input): Essentials $5, Pro $17, Enterprise $20 and Enterprise + Atmosphere $25 per 1,000 requests.
• Nearby Search: Pro $32, Enterprise $35 and Enterprise + Atmosphere $40 per 1,000 requests.

Source: Google Maps Platform pricing, first volume band (0–100k). Prices change, so the googlePriceOverrides input lets you update them without waiting for a new version.

One Text Search page returns up to 20 places and is one request. A search area returns at most 3 pages (60 places).

Worked examples (Contact preset, list price, before free usage):

• One town centre (1 tile): at most 3 requests = $0.105 for up to 60 places, about $1.75 per 1,000 places.
• A city split into 20 tiles: expected about $1.40. Worst case for the first pass is 20 × 3 × $0.035 = $2.10. With re-splitting (max 40 tiles) the absolute ceiling is $4.20.
• IDs only: $0 to Google. Refresh the details later, only for the IDs you need.
• Refresh 1,000 stored place IDs with Contact fields: 1,000 Place Details Enterprise = $20. The first 1,000 each month are free.

The Google budget cap (default $5) stops the run before a request would cross the cap. The run ends cleanly and everything found so far is kept.

How grid search gets past the 60-result cap

1. The place you type, such as "Bristol", is geocoded to a bounding box. OpenStreetMap Nominatim is the default; you can switch to Google.
2. The box is split into tiles of about tileSizeKm (default 2 km). Tiles outside your circle or polygon are dropped.
3. Each tile is searched with a locationRestriction rectangle.
4. A tile that returns the full 60 is split into 4 and searched again (quadtree), up to maxSplitDepth and maxTilesPerQuery.
5. Results are de-duplicated by Google place ID / OSM id across tiles and searches.

Half of maxTilesPerQuery goes to the first grid and the other half to splits. If tiles still hit the cap at the limit, the log tells you, so you can use smaller tiles or allow more.

Polygons and Google: Google's terms forbid point-in-polygon analysis of Places coordinates. The polygon is only used to choose which tiles to search, so Google results near the edge are not clipped. OSM results are clipped to your exact polygon.

Filters

• Minimum rating / minimum reviews: Google only. OSM has no ratings, so OSM rows would all be excluded.
• Only businesses with a website, optionally their own website: Facebook, Instagram, Yell, Linktree and similar don't count.
• Only businesses WITHOUT their own website: useful for web-design prospecting.
• Only with a phone number, open now (Google), skip closed businesses (on by default).

Filtered-out businesses are never charged.

Pricing of this Actor (pay per event)

Event	When	Price
osm-place	Each OpenStreetMap business saved to the dataset	$0.001 ($1 per 1,000)
google-place	Each Google Places business saved to the dataset	$0.0015 ($1.50 per 1,000)

Our price is deliberately low because with Google you also pay Google directly. You are never charged for:

• duplicates
• filtered-out rows
• errors
• dry runs
• Google requests themselves (Google bills those to you)

The run respects your maximum total charge and stops cleanly when it is reached.

Agency Lead Finder hand-off

The SiteVerdict Agency Lead Finder audits each business's website for speed, tracking and AI-search issues and scores the lead. There are two ways to hand this Actor's results to it:

• Easiest: give the Agency Lead Finder this run's run ID or dataset ID. Our field names map onto its inputs automatically: name, website, phone, address, city, postcode, countryCode, primaryCategory, rating, reviewCount, googleMapsUrl, placeId and businessStatus.
• Or turn on "Export for SiteVerdict Agency Lead Finder". The key-value record AGENCY_LEAD_FINDER_INPUT then holds:
  • businesses: ready to paste into its "businesses" input. There is one entry per own website domain, so chains sharing a site appear once; Facebook and Yell-style pages are kept per business. Businesses without a website are kept, because it reports them as no-website leads.
  • websites: the same list as plain URLs.
  • runId

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Compliance, attribution and caching

This section explains the rules as we understand them. It is not legal advice.

Google Maps Platform content (Google mode)

You call Google with your own key, so you are the Google Maps Platform customer, bound by your agreement with Google (non-EEA Terms or, for billing addresses in the EEA, the EEA Terms). Key points, checked 11 Oct 2026:

• Storage and export are restricted. Terms 3.2.3(a) says the customer will not "export, extract, or otherwise scrape Google Maps Content for use outside the Services", including to "copy and save business names, addresses, or user reviews".
  • Place IDs are exempt and may be stored indefinitely (Service Specific Terms, caching section).
  • Latitude/longitude may be cached for up to 30 consecutive days (Service Specific Terms 14.3). Every Google row has latLngCacheExpiresAt.
  • What this means in practice: use Google rows inside your own application or workflow and refresh them through the API. Do not build a permanent exported database of Google names, addresses or phone numbers. If you need a list you can keep, use OpenStreetMap mode or the IDs only preset, and refresh details when you need them ("Refresh stored place IDs").
• Attribution. When you display Google content, show the Google Maps logo, or the text "Google Maps" where space is limited. Keep it separate from other sources. Every Google row carries attribution: "Google Maps". If you display reviews, credit each review's author and link to googleMapsUri. Reviews of places in France must also show the visit date. (Places API policies)
• No non-Google maps. Do not plot Places content on a non-Google map (Service Specific Terms 14.2).
• No point-in-polygon analysis on Places coordinates (Terms 3.2.3(c)(iv)). That is why Google results are never clipped to your polygon.
• No mixing: Google and OSM rows are never merged into one record. Each row keeps its own source and attribution.

OpenStreetMap (OSM mode)

• Licence: data © OpenStreetMap contributors, under the Open Database License (ODbL 1.0). Credit "© OpenStreetMap contributors" wherever you use or show it (copyright page). If you publicly share a database derived from it, that database must also be offered under the ODbL.
• Fair use of public servers:
  • Nominatim: at most 1 request per second, an identifying User-Agent, no bulk geocoding (policy). This Actor geocodes each place name once per run, at no more than about 1 request per second.
  • Overpass: we send one query at a time with pauses, and back off on HTTP 429/504. The public instance asks users to stay well under about 10,000 queries and 1 GB per day.
  • Heavy users should set their own Overpass endpoint and Nominatim endpoint, or pass coordinates or a bounding box so no geocoding is needed.

Personal data (UK GDPR / PECR)

• Business listings can include personal data. Examples are sole traders' names, mobile numbers and e-mails.
• Reviewer names and OSM e-mail addresses are off by default.
• When you turn them on, you become the controller of that data. You need a lawful basis, must honour objections, and must follow PECR: unsolicited marketing e-mails and texts to individuals, including sole traders, generally need prior consent.
• Corporate subscribers (limited companies) are treated differently, but they still have the right to object.
• The ICO's direct-marketing guidance is the reference for the UK.

Where data goes and how long it is kept

• Sent to: OpenStreetMap's public Nominatim (place-name geocoding) and Overpass servers in OSM mode, or the endpoints you set; Google Places API (with your own key) in Google mode. Each receives only the search details needed for your query (the area or place name, and the category or tag filters).
• Stored: the default dataset (one row per business) and key-value store of the run (RUN_SUMMARY, GOOGLE_COST_ESTIMATE, an optional ready-made AGENCY_LEAD_FINDER_INPUT, and a resume-state record), inside your own Apify account. There is no named store.
• Retention is set by Apify, not SiteVerdict: default storages are kept according to your Apify plan (Apify data retention). That can be longer than Google allows you to cache Google content (for example the 30-day limit on coordinates above), so delete or refresh Google-mode runs to stay within your Google terms.
• What SiteVerdict keeps: nothing. The Actor runs in your Apify account and sends no data to SiteVerdict; our contact address is included in the Nominatim User-Agent, as OSM's policy requires.

FAQ

Is this the same data as Google Maps? Google mode returns data from Google's official Places API, which is the same place database that powers Google Maps. It does not include fields the API does not offer, such as e-mails, popular times or more than 5 reviews.

Why did my OSM search return fewer results than Google? OpenStreetMap is mapped by volunteers. Cafés, pubs, shops and restaurants are well covered in UK towns. Trades (plumbers, electricians), offices and home-based businesses are often missing. Use Google mode, or "Both", for those.

My category is not recognised in OSM mode. About 60 common categories map to OSM tags; for example, plumbers maps to craft=plumber and estate agents to office=estate_agent. Anything else falls back to a business-name match. For exact control, set Custom OpenStreetMap tags, such as shop=bakery.

Can I run this without a Google key? Yes. OpenStreetMap mode needs no key. Google searches without a key produce only a cost estimate.

Does the budget cap include Google's free monthly usage? No. The cap uses list prices, so your real bill is the same or lower.

What happens if the run is migrated or restarted? Progress is saved: completed tiles, pending split tiles, seen IDs and Google spend so far. A resumed run continues where it stopped, without re-charging duplicates.

Can I store Google results in my CRM? See Compliance. Google's terms allow storing place IDs but restrict copying and saving names, addresses and reviews outside Google Maps Platform services. Check your own agreement with Google.

Limits

• Google: at most 60 results per search area (20 for Nearby Search), at most 5 reviews per place, and no e-mails. Coverage of large areas depends on tileSizeKm and maxTilesPerQuery, and areas crossing the antimeridian are not supported.
• OSM: completeness varies by place and category. Phone numbers, websites and addresses appear only when mappers added them. openNow is not evaluated for OSM.
• Public OSM servers are shared. Runs can be slowed by HTTP 429/504; the Actor waits and retries. For thousands of searches, use your own Overpass/Nominatim endpoints.
• Cost figures use Google list prices checked 11 Oct 2026. Always confirm on Google's pricing page.