We were recently working on a WordPress project that relied on the Google Maps API. Out of nowhere, a rogue AI bot hammered the site. Because GCP's billing alerts have a 45-minute latency, we got hit with a €220 bill before we even knew what was happening.

Months of $0.00, and then BAM — €220 in April.

While investigating, I realized how predatory Google's UI is. They prompt you to "Enable 15 APIs with one click," but setting actual hard limits requires navigating a confusing maze of quotas. For WP developers handing over sites to clients, this is a massive liability. If a client's site gets scraped, they blame you for the bill.

The alerts arrived too late. The entire free tier and the €220 overage happened in under 45 minutes. (Cue the endless email thread begging Google Support for a refund).

I got so frustrated that I built a free, local browser extension (runs client-side) to fix this. It acts as an overlay on the GCP Console and calculates the exact API Quotas needed to guarantee a $0 bill, stopping requests instantly at the API level.

The extension calculates and sets exact daily quotas for the most heavily used services (Maps JavaScript API and Geocoding API) to mathematically guarantee a $0 monthly bill.

I published it in the Chrome Store for free. https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/free-maps-calculator-for/bempibaijbfokllpdhkjlokmpeokkpkh/

Dropping it here because I know how many WP sites rely on Maps, and you need to protect your clients' billing accounts.