Azure Maps Gen1 Pricing Customers To Be Migrated To Gen2 Pricing in September 2026, A 9x Cost Increase

OnTerra Systems Urges Organizations to Evaluate Options Now Before the September 15 Auto-Migration Deadline

DENVER, June 22, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- OnTerra Systems, a licensed reseller and technical services company specializing in web mapping and geospatial solutions, today issued a reminder to organizations currently operating under Microsoft Azure Maps Gen1 pricing tiers: a significant and automatic price increase is coming on September 15, 2026. Azure Maps customers who don’t act before that date could result in geospatial and mapping service costs that are five to nine times higher than current levels.

What Is Happening
Microsoft will retire the Azure Maps Gen1 pricing tier — which includes the Standard S0 and Standard S1 plans — on Sept. 15, 2026. On that date, any Azure Maps account still operating under Gen1 pricing automatically will be migrated to the Gen2 pricing model, whether or not the customers are aware of the cost implications. Microsoft removed the Gen1 pricing option for new Azure Maps accounts via the Azure Portal in September 2023 and extended that restriction to Azure Resource Manager deployments in October 2023. Sept. 15, 2026 marks the final end-of-life date for the Gen1 pricing tier.

The Cost Impact of Azure Gen2 Pricing Is Significant
The financial consequences of the auto-migration to Azure Maps Gen2 pricing are substantial. The Gen1 S0 tier priced geocoding transactions at $0.50 per 1,000. Under Gen2 pricing, the equivalent transactions are $4.50 per 1,000 — an 800% increase per transaction.

The practical impact on annual budgets is significant:

An organization using 100,000 mapping transactions per month under Gen1 S0 currently pays approximately $50 per month, or $600 per year. Under Gen2 pricing, that same usage costs approximately $450 per month — $5,400 per year.

An organization using 1,000,000 transactions per month moves from approximately $500 per month ($6,000 per year) under Gen1 S0 to approximately $4,500 per month ($54,000 per year) under Azure Maps Gen2 pricing.

While Azure Maps Gen2 pricing offers volume-based discounts at higher transaction tiers, the typical Gen1 S0 customer — the customer that plan was designed to serve — will see a dramatic cost increase with no mitigating offset.

Multiple Options Available to Azure Maps Customers
OnTerra Systems advises that organizations currently on Azure Maps Gen1 pricing have two viable paths before Sept. 15, 2026.

The first option is to accept the new Azure Maps Gen2 pricing. For organizations where Azure Maps is deeply embedded in their application stack, where teams are standardized on the Azure ecosystem, or where transaction volumes are large enough that Gen2 volume discounts provide meaningful relief, staying on Azure Maps may still be the right choice. In that scenario, the immediate priority is modeling actual costs under Gen2 and securing budget approval before the auto-migration of pricing occurs.

The second option is to migrate to an alternative geospatial and maps platform. The geospatial and maps services market in 2026 includes several competitive alternatives — including Google Maps Platform, HERE Technologies, and others — each with different pricing structures, feature sets, and technical capabilities. The right alternative depends on the specific workload needed: geocoding, routing, fleet logistics, asset tracking, custom map styling, and other use cases each have platforms that excel. A proper evaluation can yield significant cost savings and, in some cases, capability improvements.

“The worst outcome is for an organization to simply let September 15 arrive without having done an analysis,” said Steve Milroy, OnTerra Systems CEO. “The auto-migration will happen regardless, and the first invoice under Gen2 pricing will be a shock. There is still time to plan — but not much.”

How OnTerra Systems Can Help
OnTerra Systems has more than 20 years of experience helping businesses and organizations select, deploy, and maintain geospatial and web mapping solutions. The company is a long-standing partner of both Microsoft (Bing Maps and Azure Maps) and HERE Technologies and maintains deep expertise of the broader geospatial and mapping platform ecosystem.

OnTerra offers two forms of engagement for organizations navigating the Azure Maps pricing change. The first is consulting: a structured review of an organization’s current Azure Maps usage, a cost model under Gen2 pricing, and a vendor-neutral evaluation of whether alternative platforms may be a better fit. The second is technical migration services: end-to-end support for moving from Azure Maps to an alternative platform, including API translation, data conversion, geocoding and routing layer migration, and tile and map styling re-architecture.

Organizations interested in consulting or a migration assessment are encouraged to contact OnTerra Systems as soon as possible. Lead time matters: the earlier the evaluation begins, the more options remain available and the more seamless a transition can be.

Contact OnTerra Systems
To schedule a consultation or request a migration assessment, visit www.onterrasystems.com/azure-maps-price-increase or contact OnTerra Systems directly at info@onterrasystems.com.

About OnTerra Systems
OnTerra Systems is a licensed reseller and technical services firm with more than 20 years of experience in web mapping, geospatial solutions, location-based services, and professional consulting & development services. OnTerra Systems is a partner of Microsoft (Bing Maps and Azure Maps) and HERE Technologies, and the company serves businesses and organizations across a broad range of industries. For more information, visit www.onterrasystems.com.

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