> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.placematic.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# FAQ

> Direct answers to the questions engineers actually ask before choosing HERE Location Services — including the ones where the answer is 'it depends on your contract.'

# FAQ

Short answers. Where a topic needs depth, we link to it rather than repeating it.

<Info>
  **Some answers depend on your contract, not on the platform.**

  Pricing, entitlements, service limits, caching rights, and redistribution terms vary by plan, region, and agreement. Where that is true, we say so rather than presenting one plan's behaviour as universal.

  If an answer here contradicts your contract, your contract is right.
</Info>

## Getting started

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="What is HERE Location Services?" href="/faq/what-is-here-location-services">
    A platform of \~two dozen APIs, priced separately, with different maturity levels.
  </Card>

  <Card title="How do I get a HERE API key?" href="/faq/how-do-i-get-a-here-api-key">
    Two paths. One is fast and unentitled; one is scoped to what you'll ship.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Do I buy from HERE or Placematic?" href="/faq/do-i-buy-from-here-or-placematic">
    Direct, or through a Gold Partner. Honest trade-offs both ways.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Which HERE API should I use?" href="/faq/which-here-api-should-i-use">
    Choose by the question your system asks, not by product name.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Pricing

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="How much does HERE cost?" href="/faq/how-much-does-here-cost">
    Depends on API mix, volume, region, contract, and whether you batched.
  </Card>

  <Card title="What drives my API bill?" href="/faq/what-drives-my-api-bill">
    Not the rate card. The unit of work.
  </Card>

  <Card title="How can I reduce location API costs?" href="/faq/how-can-i-reduce-location-api-costs">
    Seven patterns, ranked by the order of magnitude they move.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Is HERE cheaper than Google?" href="/faq/is-here-cheaper-than-google">
    Sometimes. Usually not for the reason you think.
  </Card>

  <Card title="How does billing work?" href="/faq/how-does-billing-work">
    Call volume vs asset-based. Free bundles that don't pool.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Technical

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Routing or Matrix?" href="/faq/should-i-use-routing-or-matrix">
    If you're writing a loop, you already know the answer.
  </Card>

  <Card title="When should I cache results?" href="/faq/when-should-i-cache-results">
    Almost always. Buildings are stationary.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Can I store geocoding results?" href="/faq/can-i-store-geocoding-results">
    A contract question with architectural consequences. Get it in writing.
  </Card>

  <Card title="How do I handle rate limits?" href="/faq/how-do-i-handle-rate-limits">
    `429` backs off. `403` never succeeds. They are not the same problem.
  </Card>

  <Card title="How do I test before production?" href="/faq/how-do-i-test-before-production">
    Trap geometry, in CI, with a control.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Migration

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="How hard is it to migrate from Google?" href="/faq/how-hard-is-it-to-migrate-from-google">
    Varies by surface. Geocoding is a sprint. Rendering is a rewrite.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Do I have to change my data model?" href="/faq/do-i-have-to-change-my-data-model">
    Yes, in one specific way. It's the way migrations fail.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Can I run Google and HERE in parallel?" href="/faq/can-i-run-google-and-here-in-parallel">
    You should. And you may want to stay that way.
  </Card>

  <Card title="How do I validate the migration?" href="/faq/how-do-i-validate-the-migration">
    Against ground truth, not against each other.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Fleet and logistics

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Does HERE support truck routing?" href="/faq/does-here-support-truck-routing">
    Yes — and setting `transportMode=truck` is not how you use it.
  </Card>

  <Card title="How does HERE handle hazmat?" href="/faq/how-does-here-handle-hazmat">
    Cargo type and tunnel category are different parameters.
  </Card>

  <Card title="How accurate are ETAs?" href="/faq/how-accurate-are-etas">
    The routing duration is usually fine. Your ETA is wrong for other reasons.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Can I build an ELD platform?" href="/faq/can-i-build-an-eld-platform">
    Yes. Reverse geocoding will not survive the audit.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Licensing and support

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="What support does Placematic provide?" href="/faq/what-support-does-placematic-provide">
    Contracting, entitlements, and implementation. Not a support tier.
  </Card>

  <Card title="When should I contact Placematic?" href="/faq/when-should-i-contact-placematic">
    Including several cases where you shouldn't.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## The four questions behind most of these

If you read nothing else:

**What is the unit of work?** A GPS packet is not an event. A keystroke is not a query. An address is not an order. Systems bill on the unit they call, and the default unit is nearly always too small.

**Is this computation or lookup?** A drive-time polygon is a computation, done quarterly. Testing whether a point is inside it is a lookup, done millions of times, in your own database, for free.

**What is the latency budget, honestly?** Nothing is waiting for a nightly geocoding job.

**Where does the constraint live?** A truck's height is a property of the truck. Constraints that live in request builders get dropped in refactors, silently, and the response still returns `200`.

See [Architecture](/architecture).

***

Need production HERE API keys or implementation support?

Placematic is an official HERE Technologies reseller and implementation partner. [Talk to us](https://placematic.com/contact/).