# Geocodio vs Radar

> Geocodio scores 72.2 (BB) to Radar's 53.3 (D) for geocoding. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geocodio-vs-radar
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geocodio-vs-radar.md (~4,400 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-07

Geocodio scores 72.2 (BB) on agent readiness against Radar's 53.3 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do geocoding.

- Geocodio: grade BB, 72.2/100, rank #138 of 1510. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/geocodio.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/geocodio.json
- Radar: grade D, 53.3/100, rank #955 of 1510. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/radar.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/radar.json
- Best maps, geocoding and places APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/maps/index.md
- All 153 maps comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/maps/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Geocodio (BB)

Good for: Batch geocoding and district or census enrichment of addresses in the US, Canada, Mexico, the UK, Australia and New Zealand, where results must be stored.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 92 against 50
- Agent ergonomics, 80 against 65
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 10
- Maintenance & community, 86 against 77
- Transparency & trust, 87 against 55

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: Covers only the US, Canada, Mexico, the UK, Australia and New Zealand, and UK needs a Flex or Unlimited plan

### Radar (D)

Good for: A company that already has a Radar contract, or wants geofencing and trip tracking with geocoding and routing on one key.

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for: The pricing page says Radar has no free tier and every plan is an annual commitment set by quote


## Why the edge

### Schema & documentation: Geocodio +42

- Geocodio (92): OpenAPI 3.0.1 spec, version 2.1.0, with 11 paths (25). llms.txt and an AGENTS.md written for agents (10). llms.txt and AGENTS.md say when to use each endpoint and when not to, such as the Lists API over looping single calls, the upload tool for a one-off spreadsheet and straightline over driving distance unless road distance is needed (19). Typed parameters with country values, component fields and documented limits, though `fields` is a comma-separated string (12). Error table with retry guidance, examples throughout, but the spec documents 200, 400, 403, 404, 422 and 424 and not 429 or 500 (11). Versioned paths from v1 to v2.1 and a dated public changelog with entries back to 2024 (15). 25+10+19+12+11+15 = 92.
- Radar (50): No OpenAPI description or other machine-readable contract was found in the docs index (0). docs.radar.com publishes llms.txt and a Markdown twin of each page, with the whole API reference in one Markdown file of about 154 KB (10). Descriptions say what an operation is for and sometimes when to use another, for example forward geocoding for complete addresses and autocomplete for partial ones (14). Parameters are listed with type, required or optional, ranges and allowed values, though coordinate lists travel as pipe-delimited strings and there is no schema to validate against (11). Every operation has a sample request and response, and there is one list of 12 response codes with one sample error (11). Paths carry `/v1`, and no API changelog was found (4). 0 + 10 + 14 + 11 + 11 + 4 = 50.

### Transparency & trust: Geocodio +32

- Geocodio (87): Editorial half only. Closed service with clear, dated terms under Virginia law, and libraries and CLI under MIT (20). The privacy policy says API and spreadsheet input and results are deleted within 45 days, error logs kept 90 days, and customer data isn't used to train AI models. A separate data retention policy and llms.txt put Lists API data at 72 hours. Results may be stored permanently by the customer (27). Replaced API versions are guaranteed for at least 12 months, breaking changes come only with a new version, and the changelog marks each one 'Breaking' (18). The privacy policy names its processors, such as Sentry and Laravel Nightwatch, and the security page says self-serve is hosted in Europe (15). 20+27+18+15 = 80.
- Radar (55): Closed service with public Terms of Use, and an Apache-2.0 web SDK. The terms date from 24 May 2023, describe a free version the pricing page says does not exist, and paid plans run on a quoted agreement that is not published (12). The privacy notice of 13 May 2025, a public DPA and the FAQ agree on a default retention of 1 year, with 90 days for trips and 7 days for location updates in the FAQ. The privacy notice itself gives no period (22). No deprecation policy was found, and the terms let Radar change or stop the services without notice. One parameter (`userId` on geofences) is marked deprecated with no date (2). The DPA names AWS and MongoDB as sub-processors, and the privacy notice says hosting is in the United States (15). 12 + 22 + 2 + 15 = 51. The privacy notice and DPA weren't re-read on 4 November, so their readings are per the 9 October check.

### Payments & pricing: Geocodio +30

- Geocodio (40): No x402, MPP or L402 (0). $1 per 1,000 lookups after the free tier, and per-credit rates for every Flex tier, public without login (20). 2,500 lookups a day free with no card until usage passes the free tier (20). Signup and key creation are a browser flow at dash.geocod.io (0). 0+20+20+0 = 40.
- Radar (10): No x402, MPP or L402 (0). The pricing page publishes starting prices without a login, $0.50 per 1,000 calls for Core Maps and $2.00 for Premium Maps, but every plan is an annual commitment at a rate set by quote (10). The pricing page says "Radar does not currently offer a free tier", and the technical validation period goes through sales (0). Keys come from a dashboard account, and the sign-up page was closed to us by robots.txt on 9 October, so no programmatic route was found (0). 0 + 10 + 0 + 0 = 10.

### Agent ergonomics: Geocodio +15

- Geocodio (80): API reading. `limit`, opt-in `fields` appends and `stable_address_key` re-lookups size responses and cost, and results are ordered best first (20). Batches of 10,000 lookups, Lists for 10 million, distance filters (max_distance, max_results, order_by) and paginated list listings (17). Codes 403, 422, 429 and 500 each carry a documented meaning and retry rule, error bodies link a help page, and `_warnings` reports ignored parameters (18). Geocoding reads are safe to retry, but there's no idempotency key on batch or list creation and AGENTS.md says a retried request is billed again (10). One required parameter on a single geocode, and official libraries for Python, Node, PHP and Ruby plus a CLI with `--agent` output (15). 20+17+18+10+15 = 80.
- Radar (65): Read as an API. `limit` on search operations (1 to 100), `layers` and `country` filters on geocoding, and optional `geometry` on route optimisation size a response, with no field selection (14). List operations page with `limit` up to 1,000 and date cursors such as `updatedBefore` (16). Errors are JSON with `code`, `param` and `message`, and every response carries `X-Radar-Request-ID` (15). The maps operations only read. Geofence and beacon writes are PUT upserts by external ID, and no idempotency key was found for trip or user creation (10). Most maps calls need one parameter. Official SDKs cover web, iOS, Android and five cross-platform frameworks, all client-side, with no server library found (10). 14 + 16 + 15 + 10 + 10 = 65.

### Maintenance & community: Geocodio +9

- Geocodio (86): API v2.1 released 3 November 2026 (Australia and New Zealand), and PHP library 3.4.1 on 4 November (30). Dated changelog entries on 8 September, 1, 8, 9, 19, 22 and 31 October and 3 November 2026, plus library releases in October (20). Public changelog, support by email and a team-staffed help desk named on the pricing page. We didn't read GitHub issue reply times (12). Official Python 1.6.0 and Node 2.3.0 from 12 October and PHP 3.4.1 from 4 November are current (15). Each library and the CLI run CI on GitHub Actions; we didn't check whether the runs pass (9). 30+20+12+15+9 = 86.
- Radar (77): No API changelog was found, so recency rests on Radar's own SDKs. radar-sdk-android 4.2.0 on 29 October and radar-sdk-ios 3.45.0 on 27 October 2026, and in the listed web SDK, maps-v1.2.0 on 13 October (a MapLibre upgrade with changes to RadarMap.ts and RadarMarker.ts), all within 30 days (30). Stable tags in the 90 days from 6 August include web v5.1.2 (25 August), v5.1.3 (31 August), v5.2.0 (1 September), autocomplete-v1.1.1 (14 September) and maps-v1.2.0, iOS 3.40.0 to 3.45.0 and Android 3.37.0 to 4.2.0; betas aren't counted (20). No public changelog for the API, support through a customer success manager and a feedback form, and GitHub issue replies were not read (5). Official SDKs for eight platforms are current (15). The web SDK repository carries Jest tests and CodeQL and npm publish workflows, whose results were not read (7). 30 + 20 + 5 + 15 + 7 = 77.

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Geocodio | Radar | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 70 | 70 | even |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 92 | 50 | Geocodio +42 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 65 | Geocodio +15 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 58 | 56 | Geocodio +2 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 10 | Geocodio +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 86 | 77 | Geocodio +9 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 87 | 55 | Geocodio +32 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **72.2 · BB** | **53.3 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Geocodio | Radar |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Dotsquare LLC | Radar Labs |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.radar.io/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Paid |
| Price for geocoding | $1600 per month (plan) | not published |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | Proprietary service under Radar's Terms of Use. The web SDK in radarlabs/radar-sdk-js is Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-11-03 | 2026-10-13 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2023-05-24 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2018-05-25 | 2025-05-13 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 21k npm/wk, 921 PyPI/wk | none |

## Verdicts

**Geocodio.** Geocodio publishes llms.txt, an AGENTS.md on cost and retries, an OpenAPI spec and a dated changelog, and its results may be stored permanently. Coverage stops at six countries, there's no MCP server or published SLA for self-serve plans, and the docs still put the key in the query string by default.

**Radar.** Radar documents 38 REST operations in Markdown with a rate limit on each, and its status feed shows two API incidents of elevated errors or latency in 90 days. Access is sales-led. The pricing page says there is no free tier, every plan is an annual commitment, and no OpenAPI description or API changelog was found.

## Before you call either

### Geocodio

1. Always set `country`, because an address with none falls back to the US and is billed even when it's wrong
2. Send the key as `Authorization: Bearer`, not in the query string, so it stays out of logs
3. Use batch POST /geocode (up to 10,000 lookups) or the Lists API rather than looping single requests
4. Treat accuracy_type place, county or state as not found, and check `_warnings` for appends that were billed but skipped
5. Don't retry 403 or 422. On 429 read X-RateLimit headers and back off, and never re-upload a list sitting in ENQUEUED

### Radar

1. Send the key in the `Authorization` header with no `Bearer` prefix, and call `https://api.radar.io/v1`, not radar.com
2. Use a publishable key for geocoding, search and routing. Keep the secret key for users, trips, geofences and beacons
3. Call `/v1/search/autocomplete` for partial addresses and place names. `/v1/geocode/forward` is documented as best for complete addresses
4. Set `units=metric` on routing calls. The default is imperial, with distances in feet
5. Treat 429 as one of three things (rate limit, no state change or selective throttling) and 402 as usage exceeded. No Retry-After header is documented
6. Do not keep geocoding, autocomplete or place results for more than 30 days

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Geocodio or Radar?

Geocodio scores 72.2 (BB) on agent readiness against Radar's 53.3 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

### Do Geocodio and Radar need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call Geocodio and Radar without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Geocodio. Radar has a hosted endpoint at https://api.radar.io/v1.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geocodio-vs-radar.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geocodio-vs-radar.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "geocodio", "b": "radar"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare geocodio radar`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/geocodio.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/radar.json

## Other comparisons with Geocodio or Radar

- [Amazon Location Service vs Geocodio](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-location-vs-geocodio.md)
- [Amazon Location Service vs Radar](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-location-vs-radar.md)
- [ArcGIS Location Platform vs Geocodio](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcgis-vs-geocodio.md)
- [ArcGIS Location Platform vs Radar](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcgis-vs-radar.md)
- [Azure Maps vs Geocodio](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/azure-maps-vs-geocodio.md)
- [Azure Maps vs Radar](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/azure-maps-vs-radar.md)
- [Geoapify Location Platform + MCP vs Geocodio](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geoapify-vs-geocodio.md)
- [Geoapify Location Platform + MCP vs Radar](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geoapify-vs-radar.md)
- [Geocodio vs Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geocodio-vs-google-maps-platform.md)
- [Geocodio vs HERE Location Services](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geocodio-vs-here-location-services.md)
- [Geocodio vs LocationIQ](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geocodio-vs-locationiq.md)
- [Geocodio vs Mapbox APIs + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geocodio-vs-mapbox.md)
- [Geocodio vs MapQuest](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geocodio-vs-mapquest.md)
- [Geocodio vs MapTiler Cloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geocodio-vs-maptiler.md)
- [Geocodio vs NextBillion.ai](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geocodio-vs-nextbillion.md)
- [Geocodio vs Nominatim](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geocodio-vs-nominatim.md)
- [Geocodio vs OpenCage Geocoding API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geocodio-vs-opencage.md)
- [Geocodio vs Stadia Maps](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geocodio-vs-stadia-maps.md)
- [Geocodio vs TomTom Maps APIs + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geocodio-vs-tomtom.md)
- [Geocodio vs Woosmap](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geocodio-vs-woosmap.md)
- [Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP vs Radar](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-maps-platform-vs-radar.md)
- [HERE Location Services vs Radar](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/here-location-services-vs-radar.md)
- [LocationIQ vs Radar](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/locationiq-vs-radar.md)
- [Mapbox APIs + MCP vs Radar](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mapbox-vs-radar.md)
- [MapQuest vs Radar](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mapquest-vs-radar.md)
- [MapTiler Cloud vs Radar](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/maptiler-vs-radar.md)
- [Nominatim vs Radar](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nominatim-vs-radar.md)
- [OpenCage Geocoding API vs Radar](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/opencage-vs-radar.md)
- [Radar vs Stadia Maps](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/radar-vs-stadia-maps.md)
- [Radar vs TomTom Maps APIs + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/radar-vs-tomtom.md)
- [Radar vs Woosmap](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/radar-vs-woosmap.md)
- [NextBillion.ai vs Radar](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nextbillion-vs-radar.md)

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Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp