1lookupData and validation APIs
From $4.00
per 1,000 address lookups; $9.90 on Starter
Census geography data
$0: the documentation prints no price, charge or key requirement
census.gov
Free official geocoder vs one flat answer per address matched
The Census Geocoder is free and official, and 1Lookup returns the tract and its districts as one flat answer for $0.010 when the address is matched.
Looking for a Census Geocoder alternative? This page sets Census Geocoder pricing beside 1Lookup, with every Census Geocoder figure taken from its own published pages, checked October 2026.
- 7-day free trial on every plan
- No contract and no minimum volume
2
Credits per address matched
about $0.01 on Starter
0
Credits when not matched
no match, no charge
Up to 4
Other matches listed with the first
one charge for the whole lookup
2M
Rows in one CSV file
one address per row
At a glance
Here is where 1Lookup wins against Census Geocoder, and where Census Geocoder still wins.
Both put a US street address on the Census Bureau's own map and name the tract, county and districts it sits in. The Census Geocoder is the Census Bureau's own service: you build the request, choose a benchmark and a vintage, and pick the tract, county and districts out of lists of raw layer records. 1Lookup takes one address line and returns one flat object with the matched address, the 11-digit tract id and name, the block group and block ids, the county, state, congressional district, metro area, place and school district, and the coordinates, on a shared credit balance. An address it cannot locate costs nothing.
1lookupWhere 1Lookup wins- One flat object per address with the tract, block group, block, county, state, congressional district, metro area, place and school district named, where the Census Geocoder returns lists of raw layer records
- A bulk CSV with an address column returns the full set of geography columns for every row, where the Census Geocoder's batch geographies carry state, county, tract and block code and stop at 10,000 records a file
- An address the Census Bureau cannot locate, a malformed entry and a lookup that could not be answered cost nothing, and several possible matches are billed once, with the next four listed
- The same key and balance also pay for phone, email and IP validation, and credits roll over for 3 months
What it costs
From $4.00
per 1,000 address lookups; $9.90 on Starter
Where Census Geocoder wins- It is the Census Bureau's own geocoder, free and official: the documentation says coordinates come from data loaded from a MAF/TIGER benchmark database, and it prints no price, plan or key requirement.
- A single-record geographies request returns many layers at once. By default the documentation lists State, County, Tract, Block, Congressional Districts, State Legislative Districts, Census Designated Places, County Subdivisions, Incorporated Places, Combined Statistical Areas, Urban Areas, Urbanized Areas and Urban Clusters, and layers=all is an accepted entry for every layer.
- You choose the benchmark and the vintage. The documentation names Public_AR_Current, ACS and Census benchmarks and Current_Current, ACS and similar vintages, so the geography can be matched to the survey year you are working with.
- It also searches by coordinates (x, y) and accepts coordinate files, and a separate Puerto Rico address search takes an urbanization and a municipio.
- Batch files of addresses or of coordinates, as CSV or Excel, up to 10,000 records per file.
What it costs
$0: the documentation prints no price, charge or key requirement
Short answer
The Census Geocoder is the Census Bureau's own geocoder. It turns an address into coordinates and, with a geographies request, lists the tract, county and districts around them. Its documentation prints no price, plan or key requirement. 1Lookup's Census Tract Lookup returns the same kind of answer as one flat object for 2 credits, about $0.010 on Starter, charged only when the address is matched.
What replaces what
Here is which 1Lookup product matches each Census Geocoder job.
The Census Geocoder is free and you build the answer from its layer records. This is the same kind of answer as a single API call on a shared credit balance, charged only when the address is matched.
Side by side
Both products are measured on the same criteria, using Census Geocoder's own published numbers.
| Criteria | 1lookup | |
|---|---|---|
| Contact-data coverage | EmailPhoneIP | EmailPhoneIP |
| Pricing model | Monthly plans with universal credits; core phone, email and IP lookups cost 1 credit, enrichment and intelligence products cost more | Free official service of the US Census Bureau. The API documentation and the overview page print no price, plan, quota or key requirement, and every example request in the documentation carries no API key. Single-record and batch submission both exist. Coordinates are calculated along an address range from a MAF/TIGER benchmark database. |
| Starting price | $99/mo for 20,000 credits. At 2 credits each (Census Tract Lookup API), that is $9.90 per 1,000 address lookups on Starter, down to $4.00 on Enterprise. | $0: the documentation prints no price, charge or key requirement. |
| Free option | Free single lookups via the online tools at 1lookup.io/tools, no account required | The whole service: the documentation lists no plan, quota or charge, and its example requests use no API key. |
| Free trial | 7-day free trial on every plan: $5 of credits on Starter, $20 on Growth, Professional, and Enterprise, with no payment today | No trial: the service is free. |
| Do credits expire? | Unused monthly credits roll over for 3 months; separately purchased credits last 1 year | No credits: the documentation lists no quota or balance. |
At volume
This is what Census Geocoder charges at each volume it publishes.
| Volume | Price | Per 1,000 |
|---|---|---|
 1Lookup, every plan | $99 to $1,999 a month | $2.00 to $4.95 |
| Single-record requests (the documentation prints no quota) | $0 (free, official Census Bureau source) | $0.00 |
| Batch files of up to 10,000 records each | $0 (free, official Census Bureau source) | $0.00 |
Census Geocoder figures verified October 2026 against geocoding.geo.census.gov.
How you buy
This is how you buy from 1Lookup and from Census Geocoder.
1lookupHow it is sold
Monthly plans with universal credits; core phone, email and IP lookups cost 1 credit, enrichment and intelligence products cost more
What it starts at
$99/mo for 20,000 credits
How you try it
7-day free trial on every plan: $5 of credits on Starter, $20 on Growth, Professional, and Enterprise, with no payment today
How it is sold
Free official service of the US Census Bureau
What it starts at
$0: the documentation prints no price, charge or key requirement
How you try it
No trial: the service is free
A real result
This is what one 1Lookup result looks like.
Send a US street address
POST the address as one line, or as a street, city, state and ZIP. It needs a street number and a street name. An email address, a web link or an address with no street number is refused with a clear error and costs nothing.
We ask the Census Bureau where it sits
The Census Bureau places the address on its own map and names every boundary around it. We keep the ids as text, put the names beside them and add the benchmark and vintage that answered.
Get the areas, flat and structured
Tract, county, district, metro area, place and school district arrive in one JSON payload. An address matched bills 2 credits, and an address the Census Bureau cannot locate bills nothing.
One call returns the census areas for an address
- Matched address
- 100 EXAMPLE ST, SAMPLETOWN, IL, 62999
- Census tract ID
- 17999990001
- Tract name
- Census Tract 9900.01
- Block group ID
- 179999900011
- County
- Sample County (17999)
- State
- Illinois (IL)
- Congressional district
- Congressional District 99
- Metro area
- Sampletown, IL Metro Area
- Place
- Sampletown city
200 OK, 2 creditsShowHide
{
"classification": {
"found": true,
"matched_address": "100 EXAMPLE ST, SAMPLETOWN, IL, 62999",
"tract_geoid": "17999990001",
"tract_name": "Census Tract 9900.01",
"block_group_geoid": "179999900011",
"county_name": "Sample County",
"county_fips": "17999",
"state_abbreviation": "IL",
"congressional_district": "Congressional District 99",
"metro_area": "Sampletown, IL Metro Area",
"place": "Sampletown city",
"school_district": "Sampletown Community Unit School District 99",
"match_count": 1
},
"recommendations": { "primary_action": "APPROVE" },
"metadata": { "credits_used": 2 }
}Try the Free Census Tract Lookup by Address, one of 1Lookup's free tools.
Run one lookup in your browser and see the result before you decide.
The evidence
Here is the evidence behind every number on this page.
Here are Census Geocoder and 1Lookup side by side on the terms you check before you sign.
The terms that decide what a year actually costs, rather than what the first month does. “Not listed” means we could not verify it on either product’s published pages, not that the answer is nothing.
| Term | 1Lookup | Census Geocoder |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum commitment | None. Monthly plans with no contract and no minimum volume; cancel any time | Not listed |
| API access | Included on every plan and during the free trial; there is no tier that unlocks it | Single-record and batch REST endpoints; the documentation's example requests carry no API key. |
| Rate limit | 200 requests per 10 seconds for each API key on standard lookups and 1,000 requests a minute for each key on number type, HLR and MNP, and each account can make up to 1,000 requests a minute in total across all its keys; higher limits are available on request | Not listed |
| Support | Starter: Email Support; Growth: Priority Email & Chat Support; Professional: Chat + Live Meeting; Enterprise: Dedicated CSM | The geocoder home page gives the address geo.geocoding.services@census.gov for questions and for discussing results. |
1Lookup
Census Geocoder
Census Geocoder pricing and product facts verified against geocoding.geo.census.gov as of October 2026. Prices change, so confirm on the vendor’s site. 1Lookup numbers come from the live rate card.
Who it is for
Pick 1Lookup or stay with Census Geocoder depending on the job in front of you.
1lookupChoose 1Lookup if
you have one address and want the tract, block group, county, congressional district, metro area, place and school district as one flat answer with the names spelled out, a miss that costs nothing, and bulk CSV files on a credit balance that also pays for your other lookups.
Census GeocoderConsider Census Geocoder instead if
you want the Census Bureau's own geocoder for nothing: it is free, prints no key requirement, takes coordinates as well as addresses, lets you pick the benchmark and vintage, and returns many layers per address, though its batch files stop at 10,000 records and carry only state, county, tract and block.
Questions
People ask these questions before they switch from Census Geocoder.
What is the Census Geocoder used for?
Matching a US address to a place on the Census Bureau's map. The documentation describes a single-record service and a batch service, each with an optional geographic lookup that adds the geographies covering the coordinates: by default State, County, Tract, Block, Congressional Districts, State Legislative Districts, Census Designated Places, County Subdivisions, Incorporated Places, Combined Statistical Areas, Urban Areas, Urbanized Areas and Urban Clusters, with layers=all accepted for every layer. It geocodes addresses in the United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Island Areas.
How does Census Geocoder pricing work?
It is free as far as its pages print: the API documentation and the Census Bureau's overview page list no plan, quota or charge, and every example request in the documentation carries no API key. Single-record requests return JSON, and batch files go up as CSV or Excel. Checked October 2026.
How much does 1Lookup charge for the same lookup?
2 credits per address matched, free when the address is not matched. On the Starter plan ($99 a month for 20,000 credits) a lookup is about $0.010, which covers 10,000 addresses a month and is $9.90 per 1,000. At the Enterprise end of the rate card it is about $0.004. The Census Geocoder is the cheaper bill: it is free, against $99 for a Starter month.
What does the Census Geocoder return, and what does 1Lookup add?
The Census Geocoder returns each geography as a list of the source's own records, keyed by layer name, with attributes such as GEOID, STATE, COUNTY, TRACT, BLKGRP, BASENAME, NAME, CENTLAT, AREALAND and OID, and the caller picks out what it needs. 1Lookup returns the same kind of facts as one finished object: the tract id and name, the block group and block ids, the county and state with their codes kept as text, the congressional district, metro area, place and school district by name, the coordinates and how many possible matches there were, from one request and one balance.
Where does the Census Geocoder beat 1Lookup?
On price and on options. It is free, and it is the Census Bureau's own service. It also searches by coordinates, accepts coordinate files, lets you choose the benchmark and the vintage so the geography matches a survey year, and has a separate Puerto Rico search that takes an urbanization and a municipio. 1Lookup takes an address only, uses the current benchmark and vintage, and has no reverse lookup from coordinates to a tract.
What are the Census Geocoder's batch limits?
The documentation says there is currently an upper limit of 10,000 records per batch file, for addresses and for coordinates, and that batch geoLookup only includes state, county, tract and block code, with no way to request additional geographies. A 1Lookup bulk job takes a CSV with an address column of up to 2M rows and returns the tract, block group, block, county, congressional district, metro area, place and school district as columns, one row per address.
How current is each source?
Both read the Census Bureau's address and boundary data. The Census Geocoder lets you pick the benchmark and the vintage. 1Lookup uses the current ones and returns them in benchmark and vintage so a result can be repeated later. A repeat lookup of the same address by the same user within 7 days comes from the cache at no charge.
What is the best Census Geocoder alternative?
If you want the Census Bureau's own geocoder for nothing and can handle layer records, the Census Geocoder is the simplest source, and nothing beats it on price. If you want a US address turned into a flat answer with the tract, districts, metro area and school district named, bulk files up to 2M rows, free misses and one balance that also pays for phone, email and IP checks, 1Lookup's Census Tract Lookup bills 2 credits only when the address is matched.
Is the Census Geocoder worth it in 2026?
If you geocode in the volume of a few batch files, can pick your own fields out of layer records and want the Census Bureau's service directly, yes. If you need more than 10,000 addresses with districts in one job, or one JSON object per address, compare the per-lookup price of 1Lookup.
1lookupLook up a US address and see its census tract and districts
Try 1Lookup free for 7 days and compare it with Census Geocoder on your own work.
2 credits an address matched, about $0.010 on Starter, on the same balance as phone, email and IP checks. Start with the 7-day free trial.
Keep going
Keep researching Census Geocoder with the matching 1Lookup pages.
Use 1Lookup
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