Yelp Places API vs HERE Geocoding & Search for AI agents
Yelp Places API is Yelp's licensed API (formerly Yelp Fusion) for searching businesses and reading Yelp business details, ratings, photos and review excerpts. HERE Geocoding & Search is HERE's location search API family (Discover/Search, Autosuggest, Geocode, Reverse Geocode) for finding addresses and places/POIs.
The short answer
- Yelp Places API: Yelp ratings, review excerpts and photos for restaurants and local services in consumer apps that display Yelp content. The terms rule out passing that content to an LLM.
- HERE Geocoding & Search: Cheap per-call POI and address search with a free monthly tier. Good when results stay inside an app and are not fed to AI systems.
Side by side
| Yelp Places API | HERE Geocoding & Search | |
|---|---|---|
| Searches | Local businesses listed on Yelp. Yelp says it covers "millions of businesses around the world," and the supported-locales page lists 32 countries. | Addresses, places/POIs, EV charge points and third-party data such as Tripadvisor, searchable by free text or along routes. |
| Returns | JSON over REST at https://api.yelp.com/v3. Results include name, address, phone, Yelp rating, price level, review count, coordinates, categories, image and Yelp URL. Photos and review excerpts depend on the plan. | JSON with an items array. Only title, id, resultType and position are guaranteed. Place results can add address, categories, contacts (phone, www, email) and openingHours. |
| Before the first call | A Yelp developer account (a business email is required for the trial) and a private API key. Paid plans need a credit card on file. | A HERE platform account on the Base Plan, which requires entering a payment method at sign-up (since 2025), plus an app ID and API key. |
| Free | A 30-day trial with up to 5,000 API calls, for evaluation only, not commercial use. There is no permanent free tier. | 5,000 Discover/Search transactions a month on the Base Plan (30,000 for Geocode and Autocomplete). |
| Paid | Base costs $229 a month plus $5.91 per extra 1,000 calls. Enhanced costs $299 a month plus $6.57 per 1,000. Premium costs $643 a month plus $14.13 per 1,000. The FAQ says paid plans include 30,000 calls a month by default. | Discover/Search: EUR 2.33 per 1,000 (5,001 to 200,000), then EUR 1.87 per 1,000 up to 1,000,000. |
| Acting on a result | Results include the business phone number and its Yelp page URL. There is no way to message a business through the Places API. | Place results can include phone, website and email contacts. There is no way to message a business through the API. |
| Limits on keeping or showing results | No caching or storing of Yelp Content for more than 24 hours. No building your own business-listing database from it. Display Requirements apply, and Yelp can require removal of content within 24 hours. | The Platform Terms bar caching or storing Results outside the Platform for more than 30 days (24 hours for Japan and Positioning). The Base Plan also excludes asset-tracking use cases. |
| AI in its terms | Very restrictive. Section 9 bans training or fine-tuning generative AI models on Yelp Content. Section 9.4 bans submitting or ingesting any Yelp Content into any Generative AI Model, for example in prompts to ChatGPT. Yelp sells a separate Yelp AI API for conversational use at $25 per 1,000 calls. | Restrictive. Unless your plan or a separate agreement allows it, the Platform Terms (6.3 f) forbid using HERE Materials "in connection with a machine learning or artificial intelligence (“AI”) system," including generative AI. |
| Coverage | 32 countries in Yelp's supported-locales list, including the US. | Not stated on the pages read. Searches can be limited to countries by ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 code. |
| MCP server | Yelp/yelp-mcp on GitHub (https://github.com/Yelp/yelp-mcp). It wraps the Yelp Fusion AI API with one yelp_agent tool and needs a Yelp Fusion AI key, not a Places API key. | HERE Location Reasoning, an MCP server at https://hlr.here.ai/mcp (docs: https://docs.here.com/location-reasoning/docs/hlroverview). Access terms and pricing for it were not confirmed. |
Where Openpath fits
If the agent needs a local business to message in Austin, Texas, Openpath returns the listings themselves, free and with no key. See Openpath vs Yelp Places API and Openpath vs HERE Geocoding & Search.
Questions people ask
What do I need before I can use Yelp Places API?
A Yelp developer account (a business email is required for the trial) and a private API key. Paid plans need a credit card on file.
Is Yelp Places API free?
A 30-day trial with up to 5,000 API calls, for evaluation only, not commercial use. There is no permanent free tier.
What do I need before I can use HERE Geocoding & Search?
A HERE platform account on the Base Plan, which requires entering a payment method at sign-up (since 2025), plus an app ID and API key.
Is HERE Geocoding & Search free?
5,000 Discover/Search transactions a month on the Base Plan (30,000 for Geocode and Autocomplete).
Sources
Every line about another company comes from its own pages. Prices and terms change, so check the source before you rely on one.
Yelp Places API, read on October 15, 2026:
- business.yelp.com/data/resources/pricing: “$229 per month plus $5.91 per additional 1,000 API calls”
- business.yelp.com/data/resources/pricing: “$299 per month plus $6.57 per additional 1,000 API calls”
- business.yelp.com/data/resources/pricing: “$643 per month plus $14.13 per additional 1,000 API calls”
- business.yelp.com/data/resources/pricing: “Receive 5,000 free API calls during the 30-day trial period”
- business.yelp.com/data/resources/pricing: “Start 30-day free trial Business email required”
- business.yelp.com/data/resources/pricing: “$25 / 1,000 API calls Minimum 1,000 daily API calls”
- docs.developer.yelp.com/docs/places-faq: “These API calls are STRICTLY FOR EVALUATION AND NOT FOR COMMERCIAL DEPLOYMENT”
- docs.developer.yelp.com/docs/places-faq: “This plan includes 30,000 API calls per month by default”
- docs.developer.yelp.com/docs/places-intro: “valuable information such as name, address, phone number, Yelp rating, price levels, and review counts”
- docs.developer.yelp.com/docs/places-intro: “The Yelp Places API uses private key authentication to authenticate all endpoints.”
- docs.developer.yelp.com/docs/places-intro: “millions of businesses around the world”
- terms.yelp.com/developers/api_terms: “opt into a paid subscription program by providing credit card and other necessary information”
- terms.yelp.com/developers/api_terms: “cache, record, pre-fetch, or otherwise store any portion of the Yelp Content for a period longer than twenty-four (24) hours”
- terms.yelp.com/developers/api_terms: “use it to update or create your own database of business listing information”
- terms.yelp.com/developers/api_terms: “Submit or ingest any Yelp Content into any Generative AI Model (e.g., prompts that contain any Yelp Content into ChatGPT”
- terms.yelp.com/developers/api_terms: “for the purpose of training, developing, enhancing, or fine-tuning any Generative AI Models without Yelp’s prior written approval”
- github.com/Yelp/yelp-mcp: “MCP server for exposing tools powered by Yelp's data”
- docs.developer.yelp.com/docs/resources-supported-locales: “Following are the locales Yelp Places API supports.”
HERE Geocoding & Search, read on October 15, 2026:
- here.com/get-started/pricing: “Discover / Search pricing Monthly Transactions Cost per 1,000 0 to 5,000 Free 5,001 to 200,000 €2.33”
- here.com/get-started/pricing: “200,001 to 1,000,000 €1.87 1,000,001+ Contact us 1 Transaction is counted for every Request.”
- here.com/get-started/pricing: “Discover addresses, Places/POIs, EV charge points, truck-specific attributes and 3rd party data like Tripadvisor”
- here.com/learn/blog/april-2025-platform-release-notes: “The Base plan requires entering a payment method during the onboarding process to access our platform.”
- docs.here.com/geocoding-and-search/docs/discover: “Only title, id, resultType, position can be expected for all results.”
- legal.here.com/en-gb/terms/here-platform-terms: “for more than 30 days, except HERE Positioning services which cannot be cached or stored outside the Platform for more than 24 hours”
- legal.here.com/en-gb/terms/here-platform-terms: “Use HERE Materials in connection with a machine learning or artificial intelligence (“AI”) system”
- legal.here.com/en-gb/terms/here-platform-terms: “Except as otherwise permitted in your Subscription Plan or separate agreement with HERE, you may not:”
- here.com/get-started/pricing/base-plan-restrictions: “The following use cases are excluded from the Base Plan.”
- docs.here.com/location-reasoning/docs/hlroverview: “HERE Location Reasoning is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server”
- docs.here.com/location-reasoning/docs/hlroverview: “The HERE Location Reasoning MCP server is available at: https://hlr.here.ai/mcp”