Google Maps Premium Tier: Who Pays, What Stays Free, and How to Price It

Google Maps is free for consumers today. Design a subscription plan for it: decide who would pay and why, what the plan would include, what stays free, how you would price and package it, and how you would know whether it is working. ```hint Start with who loses money without it Look for a group of Maps users for whom a better map saves real time or money every week, and check what they would give up by not paying. The rest of the plan follows from that choice. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Is the plan for individual consumers, for businesses that appear on Maps, or for people who use Maps in their work? - What is the goal: new revenue, more engagement, or funding features that the free, ad-supported product cannot? - May any feature that is free today move behind the paywall, or must the free product stay exactly as it is? - Can the plan be bundled with other Google subscriptions such as Google One, or must it stand alone? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - An explicit goal and an argument for why anyone would pay for a product that is free and has free rivals - A chosen paying segment with concrete, frequent pain points, compared with the other segments considered - A package with a clear line between free and paid, plus pricing and packaging logic (tiers, trial, standalone or bundled) - Success metrics for the plan and guardrails for free users' experience and Maps' ad business - Risks such as low willingness to pay, backlash against paywalling, privacy of location data and driver distraction ### Follow-up Questions - Three months after launch, few users convert and most subscribers cancel after one month. What do you change? - Would you sell the plan inside Google One rather than on its own? What would you gain and what would you give up? - How would you keep the paid plan from making the free product feel worse?