> ## 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.

# What is HERE Location Services?

> A practical explanation of HERE Location Services for engineers — what the platform actually contains, where it beats Google Maps, and when it's the wrong choice.

HERE Location Services is a set of REST APIs and SDKs for geocoding, routing, map rendering, positioning, and fleet optimization. It is not a single API. It is a platform of roughly two dozen services, priced separately, with meaningfully different maturity levels.

Most engineering teams arrive at HERE for one of two reasons: they need truck routing that respects physical vehicle constraints, or their Google Maps bill grew faster than their revenue.

Both are good reasons. Neither is a reason to migrate everything.

## Why this matters

The dominant assumption in most engineering orgs is that "maps API" is a commodity — swap the vendor, keep the code. That assumption holds for a static map on a marketing page. It falls apart the moment your product makes decisions based on the response.

A routing API that returns a path a 53-foot trailer cannot physically drive is not a cheaper alternative. It is a liability that surfaces as a bridge strike, a rejected delivery, or a driver stuck reversing down a residential street.

HERE was built for the case where the geometry of the vehicle matters. That is its actual differentiator — not price, not coverage, not tile quality.

<Info>
  Price is the reason teams *start* evaluating HERE. Routing correctness is the reason they *stay*. If you evaluate on price alone, you will pick the wrong APIs.
</Info>

## What is actually in the platform?

Grouped by what you'd actually build with them:

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Routing & Directions" icon="route">
    Car, truck, pedestrian, EV, and bicycle routing. Truck mode accepts height, weight, axle count, and hazmat class as first-class constraints.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Geocoding & Search" icon="magnifying-glass">
    Forward geocoding, reverse geocoding, batch geocoding, autocomplete, and POI discovery.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Maps & Rendering" icon="map">
    Vector and raster tiles, satellite imagery, traffic overlays, and transport-specific layers (restrictions, weight limits).
  </Card>

  <Card title="Fleet & Optimization" icon="truck">
    Distance Matrix, Tour Planning, Route Matching, Waypoint Sequence. This is the enterprise tier and it is priced accordingly.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

There is also Positioning (hybrid GPS/Wi-Fi/cellular), Traffic Analytics, and a family of mobile SDKs. Positioning matters if you track assets indoors or in urban canyons. Most teams never touch it.

## When should you use HERE?

Use HERE when at least one of these is true:

* **You route commercial vehicles.** Trucks, vans over 3.5t, hazmat, oversized loads. This is the strongest case and it isn't close.
* **You call geocoding or routing at production volume.** The unit economics diverge sharply from Google above roughly 100k calls/month. Geocoding-heavy workloads see the largest gap.
* **You need large origin-destination matrices.** Depot-to-stop optimization across a real fleet, computed in one call rather than N×M sequential requests.
* **You need contractual price stability.** HERE contracts through a partner do not reprice mid-term.
* **You need EV routing with charge-state awareness.** Range, consumption curve, and charging stops as routing inputs.

## When should you *not* use HERE?

This is the part most vendor pages omit.

<Warning>
  **Do not migrate to HERE for these use cases.** You will spend engineering time to arrive somewhere worse.
</Warning>

* **Consumer place discovery.** Google's POI database, reviews, photos, and business hours are categorically better. If your product answers "what's a good restaurant near me," stay on Google.
* **Very low volume.** Under \~10k calls/month you are optimizing a rounding error. Both platforms have free tiers. Spend the time elsewhere.
* **Street View or equivalent.** HERE has no comparable product.
* **You need the exact Google Maps look.** Tile styling differs. Your designers will notice.
* **Your entire frontend is coupled to `google.maps.*`.** The migration is real work. Do it because routing correctness or cost demand it, not because a slide deck did.

A common and reasonable outcome: keep Google for consumer-facing search and autocomplete, move routing and batch geocoding to HERE. Nothing requires you to choose one vendor for everything.

## Key concepts

**Transport mode is not a parameter — it is a different routing engine.** `transportMode=truck` changes which road segments are traversable, which turns are legal, and how time is estimated. It is not car routing with a slower speed profile.

**Truck constraints are physical, not advisory.** Height in centimetres, gross weight in kilograms, axle count, trailer count, tunnel category, hazmat class. Omit them and you get a route that assumes an unconstrained vehicle. HERE will not warn you.

<CodeGroup>
  ```bash Truck routing — constrained theme={null}
  curl "https://router.hereapi.com/v8/routes" \
    -H "apiKey: $PLACEMATIC_KEY" \
    -G \
    --data-urlencode "transportMode=truck" \
    --data-urlencode "origin=42.0641,-88.0509" \
    --data-urlencode "destination=41.5250,-88.0817" \
    --data-urlencode "truck[height]=410" \
    --data-urlencode "truck[grossWeight]=35000" \
    --data-urlencode "truck[axleCount]=5" \
    --data-urlencode "return=summary,polyline"
  ```

  ```bash Same request — constraints omitted theme={null}
  # Returns a route. Possibly under a 3.9m bridge.
  # HERE assumes an unconstrained vehicle. No error, no warning.
  curl "https://router.hereapi.com/v8/routes" \
    -H "apiKey: $PLACEMATIC_KEY" \
    -G \
    --data-urlencode "transportMode=truck" \
    --data-urlencode "origin=42.0641,-88.0509" \
    --data-urlencode "destination=41.5250,-88.0817" \
    --data-urlencode "return=summary"
  ```
</CodeGroup>

**Every API is billed independently.** There is no bundle. A route calculation, a geocode, and a tile request are three different meters. Cost forecasting means forecasting each call type separately — see [HERE Pricing Explained](/getting-started/here-pricing-explained).

**Batch endpoints are not the same product as their real-time counterparts.** Batch geocoding is asynchronous, cheaper per record, and has different SLAs. Teams routinely pay real-time rates for work that should have been batched overnight.

**Two commercial models exist.** Call-volume pricing (per API call) and asset-based pricing (per tracked vehicle per month). Fleet operators with predictable vehicle counts and unpredictable call volumes usually want asset-based. SaaS platforms embedding APIs usually want call volume.

## Best practices

* **Prototype against the API you will ship.** Do not validate on car routing and deploy truck routing. Different engine, different results, different failure modes.
* **Test on known trap geometry.** Route a 4.1m vehicle under the 11foot8 bridge in Durham, NC. Route a truck onto Storrow Drive in Boston. Route a commercial vehicle onto Long Island's Southern State Parkway. If your integration returns any of these paths, your constraints are not being applied.
* **Cache geocoding results.** Addresses are stable. Re-geocoding the same customer address on every order is the single most common source of avoidable spend.
* **Batch anything that can tolerate latency.** Nightly address normalization, historical backfills, bulk imports.
* **Set `return` explicitly.** Requesting full turn-by-turn instructions and polylines when you only need duration inflates response size and processing time.
* **Instrument per-endpoint call counts before you migrate.** You cannot forecast a HERE bill from a Google bill. The meters do not map one to one.

## Common mistakes

**Assuming truck routing is enabled by setting `transportMode=truck`.**
It selects the engine. It does not supply your vehicle's dimensions. Both are required.

**Treating the free tier as a production sandbox.**
Free tiers change, and not every API is included. Truck routing availability in the free tier specifically should be confirmed for your account before you build a pilot around it.

**Migrating geocoding and routing simultaneously.**
Two independent systems, two independent failure surfaces, one incident with no clear cause. Migrate one, stabilize, then the next.

**Comparing list prices instead of workload cost.**
Per-1,000 rates are close between vendors at entry level. The divergence is in matrix operations, batch endpoints, volume tiers, and free bundles. Model your actual call mix.

**Ignoring the mobile SDK licensing question until late.**
Web tile access and mobile SDK access are separate entitlements. Discovering this during your app store submission is expensive.

**Building tour planning on top of the routing API.**
Multi-stop optimization is a distinct product with distinct pricing. Approximating it with N routing calls is slower, costs more, and produces worse routes.

## FAQ

**Is HERE Location Services the same as HERE Maps?**
No. HERE Maps is the consumer product. HERE Location Services is the developer platform. Only the latter is licensable.

**Do I need a HERE account to use HERE APIs?**
Not if you license through a Gold Partner. Placematic USA LLC is the contracting and billing party. You receive one invoice and never negotiate with HERE directly.

**Is HERE data as good as Google's?**
For road network geometry, truck attributes, and traffic — yes, and in commercial-vehicle attribution, better. For business POIs, reviews, and photos — no.

**How current is HERE map data?**
Map data ships on a weekly release cadence. Traffic flow and incident data update in near-real-time from probe and sensor feeds.

**Can I use HERE tiles with Leaflet or MapLibre?**
Yes. Tiles are served over standard HTTP. If you already use Leaflet, OpenLayers, or MapLibre GL, integration is largely a tile URL swap.

**Should I buy directly from HERE or through a reseller?**
Depends on volume and procurement tolerance. Direct contracts typically involve minimum volume commitments and a sales cycle. Gold Partner pricing tiers are not available to direct customers at standard volumes. See [HERE Pricing Explained](/getting-started/here-pricing-explained) for the honest version.

**How long until I have a working API key?**
Through Placematic: one business day, no credit card, no demo call required.

## Related guides

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Getting a HERE API Key" href="/getting-started/getting-a-here-api-key">
    Sandbox vs production keys, and what "free tier" actually covers.
  </Card>

  <Card title="HERE Pricing Explained" href="/getting-started/here-pricing-explained">
    Call volume vs asset-based pricing, and how to model your real bill.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Choosing the Right HERE APIs" href="/getting-started/choosing-the-right-here-apis">
    A decision tree by use case, not by product family.
  </Card>

  <Card title="HERE vs Google Maps" href="/getting-started/here-vs-google-maps">
    Where each platform genuinely wins.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

Also relevant: [Authentication](/getting-started/authentication) · [Truck Routing Guide](/guides/truck-routing) · [Distance Matrix](/guides/distance-matrix) · [Migrating from Google Maps](/guides/google-migration)

***

Need production HERE API keys or enterprise licensing?

Placematic is an official HERE Technologies reseller and implementation partner helping companies choose the right HERE APIs, estimate costs, migrate from Google Maps and build production-ready geospatial solutions.