WP Go Maps (formerly WP Google Maps)

The map on your site can be a Google account with a card attached

Putting a map with your shops or your office looks like the easy part of a website. What almost nobody checks beforehand is where the map images come from and who learns about each visit.

With Google Maps the answer has two parts. Using it requires creating a Google Cloud project with billing enabled and an API key, and since March 2025 free usage works with monthly caps per product instead of the old 200 dollar credit. On top of that, every map load requests images and addresses from a server that is not yours.

Choosing the map engine is a cost and privacy decision before it is a design one. WP Go Maps is useful precisely because it lets you make it: it works with Google Maps, but also with Leaflet, OpenLayers, Maptiler, Stadia Maps, LocationIQ, Azure Maps and an option called Zero Cost, and the Google key is only needed if you choose Google.

What the free version includes and what Pro adds

The free edition already covers a lot more than a contact page map:

• Unlimited markers by typing the address, which you then drag to the exact spot.
• Store locator, with the option to restrict the search to one country.
• Polygons and polylines to draw delivery areas or routes.
• Nine map themes and the option to create your own.
• Editor block, Elementor block and widget.

The Pro edition is what turns the map into a directory: multiple maps, marker categories with filtering, descriptions with links and images, directions to each marker, listings as a list, table, carousel or advanced table, CSV import and export of markers, and KML and KMZ file import.

When Google pays off and when it does not

It pays off when the map is part of the service: Street View, address autocomplete while the visitor types, or a locator where people look for their nearest shop.

It does not pay off when the map is decorative: one office on the contact page or ten distributors in one country. For that, Leaflet asks for no key and no card, and you avoid watching a billing dashboard that almost nobody opens until a charge appears.

Visitor privacy, before the first marker

In January 2022 a Munich court ordered a website to pay 100 euros to a visitor for loading Google Fonts without prior consent, because doing so sent their IP address to Google. A map served by an external provider also makes requests to someone else's server on every visit.

WP Go Maps sets no tracking cookies and includes a consent prompt that keeps the map dormant until the visitor accepts. It is enabled under Maps, Settings, GDPR. With visits from Europe, it is worth enabling before anything else.

What WP Go Maps does not cover

Marker clustering, ratings and tracking are not in Pro: they come in a separate add-on called Gold. Markers added by the visitors themselves come in another one, called VGM.

Nor is it designed to colour countries or provinces according to a value. It draws points, areas and routes on a street map.

Requirements and first steps with WP Go Maps

WordPress 6.0 or higher and PHP 7.0 or higher. The Pro edition also works on multisite networks.

1. Choose the engine before creating the first map, with cost and privacy in mind.
2. Enable the consent prompt if you have European visitors.
3. Create the categories before loading the markers.
4. If you have many locations, import them by CSV instead of typing them one by one.

Other map plugins in the catalogue

If you only need the locator, Agile Store Locator supports Google Maps or MapLibre with providers such as OpenStreetMap, and imports and exports locations by CSV. WP Maps Pro works with Google Maps or Leaflet and puts posts or custom content types on the map using ACF fields.

And if what you actually want is to colour territories, Interactive Geo Maps starts from more than 250 vector region maps.

Questions about WP Go Maps before installing it

Do I need a Google API key?

Only if you choose Google Maps as the engine. Leaflet, OpenLayers and the other engines do not ask for one.

Can I import my locations from a spreadsheet?

With the Pro edition, yes: it imports and exports markers by CSV, and also reads KML and KMZ files.

Does it cluster markers when there are many?

Not with Pro. Clustering comes in the Gold add-on.