PreviewThis is a preview. The API is not open yet, the addresses in these examples do not serve traffic, and nothing here is a commitment.
Matrix · Directions · Isochrones
Travel-time matrices, directions and isochrones across North America — request and response compatible with the openrouteservice API. Change the base URL, add a key, keep your code.
10% of Google's entry price per element, 5% of its traffic-aware tier, and matrices big enough to ask for in one call.
250,000 matrix elements a month on the free tier, up to 50 × 50 per request. No card, no sales call.
curl -X POST \
https://api.waymatrix.io/v2/matrix/driving-car \
-H "Authorization: $API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"locations": [
[-87.6298, 41.8781],
[-87.6244, 41.8796],
[-87.6722, 41.9227]
],
"metrics": ["duration", "distance"],
"units": "km"
}'{
"durations": [
[0, 421.3, 782.6],
[402.9, 0, 897.4],
[768.1, 881.5, 0]
],
"distances": [
[0, 2.61, 6.42],
[2.68, 0, 8.13],
[6.35, 8.21, 0]
],
"sources": [
{
"location": [-87.6298, 41.8781],
"snapped_distance": 4.31
},
{
"location": [-87.6244, 41.8796],
"snapped_distance": 11.82
},
{
"location": [-87.6722, 41.9227],
"snapped_distance": 6.09
}
],
"destinations": [
{
"location": [-87.6298, 41.8781],
"snapped_distance": 4.31
},
{
"location": [-87.6244, 41.8796],
"snapped_distance": 11.82
},
{
"location": [-87.6722, 41.9227],
"snapped_distance": 6.09
}
],
"metadata": {
"attribution": "© openrouteservice by HeiGIT | Data from OpenStreetMap",
"service": "matrix",
"timestamp": 1788412800000,
"query": {
"locations": [
[-87.6298, 41.8781],
[-87.6244, 41.8796],
[-87.6722, 41.9227]
],
"metrics": ["duration", "distance"],
"units": "km",
"profile": "driving-car"
},
"engine": {
"version": "9.10.0",
"build_date": "2026-07-28T00:00:00Z",
"graph_date": "2026-07-31T00:00:00Z",
"osm_date": "2026-07-30T00:00:00Z"
},
"element_count": 9
}
}No surprise bill
every plan on sale stops at its allowance
ORS-compatible
same paths, bodies and response shapes
North America
driving profile, OpenStreetMap data
Wiring this up
The endpoints, the limits, the error shapes to write retry logic against, and what this API deliberately does not have. Paste it into a coding agent, or read it as a reference.
Narrow on purpose. Each one is the same shape openrouteservice returns, so your parsing code doesn't change either.
POST /v2/matrix/{profile}
priced by origins × destinations
Every origin to every destination, duration and distance, in one request. This is the call Google charges five dollars a thousand for and caps at 625 elements — a 25 by 25 matrix.
POST /v2/directions/{profile}
10 elements per call
Geometry, turn-by-turn instructions, and alternative routes. Encoded polyline or GeoJSON, whichever your map wants.
POST /v2/isochrones/{profile}
priced by how far it reaches
Everywhere reachable in fifteen minutes, as a polygon. Site selection, service-area maps, “commute time” filters on a listings site.
Before you switch
We would rather lose the sale than the customer. Three things you are trading away, stated plainly:
Durations come from speed profiles on the road network, not from cars on it right now. If your product hinges on a minute-accurate ETA in rush hour, buy Google. If you are planning a day’s work, comparing options, or ranking by travel time, you will not miss it.
Excellent in metros, where most routing happens and where OpenStreetMap is often better than commercial data. More variable on rural roads and brand-new subdivisions. Every response carries the date of the map data behind it, so how fresh your answer is stays something you can read rather than something you have to take on trust.
There is no geocoder and no places database here. You send longitude and latitude, we send back numbers. Most teams already have coordinates from the system that created the address — if you don’t, geocode once and cache.
Measured, not asserted
One call, three hundred origins against three hundred destinations. The numbers below were measured against production and the workflow that produced them can be re-run by anyone; if they drift, they are meant to be caught.
| Matrix | Elements | Typical | Slowest in twenty |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 × 10 | 100 | 204 ms | 374 ms |
| 50 × 50 | 2,500 | 240 ms | 582 ms |
| 100 × 100 | 10,000 | 489 ms | 539 ms |
| 300 × 300 | 90,000 | 2,557 ms | 2,604 ms |
Measured against production — Benchmark run 34079297787.
Already on openrouteservice?
The hosted free tier allows 500 matrix requests a day, and there is no paid plan above it to move up to. That is a generous place to prototype and nowhere to launch from. We speak the same protocol with a far higher ceiling.
Your existing client library, your existing request bodies, your existing parsing. Point it somewhere else — and note that this really is only the base URL. Worth knowing: openrouteservice is retiring its own old host on 28 September, so staying put is a base URL change too.
Works unchanged with:
client.py
Removed: - base_url = "https://api.openrouteservice.org"
Added: + base_url = "https://api.waymatrix.io" headers = {"Authorization": API_KEY}That is the entire diff. Everything below the base URL is unchanged.
An element is one origin paired with one destination. A 200 × 150 matrix is 30,000 of them, whether you ask in one request or thirty.
$0
while the beta runs
$0
no card required
$29 per month
per month
$99 per month
per month
$299 per month
per month
Same engine, different job
This API is the routing layer underneath Optimiciti, a route planner for dispatchers and small fleets. If what you actually need is "assign these 400 stops to these 12 vans," that problem is already solved over there — and an optimization endpoint is on the way here.
no optimization endpoint here yet