Metlink is among Google customers worldwide who will be stung by higher charges for using its mapping service.

Wellington's Metlink is crying foul after Google increased the price the public transport provider will have to pay to use Google Maps from $1000 a month, to $30,000 a month.

Spokesman Clayton Anderson said the massive price hike was not fair and it had been given too little notice of the change, which will take effect from mid-July.

The price change is part of a global reset by Google affecting a wide range of businesses including retail chains and real estate agents.

Auckland Transport spokesman Mark Hannan said it was not impacted as it used an open-source mapping service, ESRI/Open Streetmaps.

Cost had been one of the drivers in that decision, Hannan said.

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Google announced new pricing for embedding Google Maps into software last month, but Metlink said it was only advised on Monday.

Google Maps underpins a Metlink service that lets people plan journeys on its website and see how far away buses, trains and ferries are.

Its Metlink commuter app is solely built on the Google Maps API (application programming interface).

"If we had been better informed we would have been able to build the move to a new mapping service into our regular development programme," Anderson said.

"Our monthly bill will jump from $1000 a month to $30,000. We have no advertising to generate income so we will need to wear the cost or move to another mapping service which also has significant costs in terms of web development."

Neither council rates nor fares would need to go up to cover the higher bills, Anderson said. Instead, they would be covered within existing budgets while Metlink switched to "a different and less expensive map provider", he said.

A statement from Google, sent by spokeswoman Kristine Arnott, said its plans and pricing were "adjusted as we updated our product offering, improved the overall experience, and to reflect current market conditions".

"We thought carefully about how to price Google Maps Platform products and introduced the free tier, which is a $200 credit, and covers the usage of most of our customers," the statement said.

Not all Google Maps users are believed to be facing cost increases on the scale of Metlink.

But Metlink's website and app were "very busy" making more than 2 million calls a month on Google's mapping API, Clayton said.