Prediction API Features and Future Prices

[Travis Green]

We continue to be thrilled with the cool uses all of you are finding for the Prediction API, and wanted to share some updates about the service.

First, you can now track your Prediction API usage along with many of Google’s other APIs within the APIs Console (https://code.google.com/apis/console/). To ensure that your requests are measured, please include your project key in requests, as shown below:

Training
https://www.googleapis.com/prediction/v1.1/training?data=mybucket%2Fmydata&key=your_api_project_key

Check Training
https://www.googleapis.com/prediction/v1.1/training/mybucket%2Fmydata?key=your_api_project_key

Prediction
https://www.googleapis.com/prediction/v1.1/training/mybucket%2Fmydata/predict?key=your_api_project_key


Second, your feedback about our documentation has led to:

• Two demo applications focused on categorization and regression along with an explanatory video
• A new “Hello World” section
• More design recommendations
• New Python and R libraries (in addition the the PHP, Ruby, .Net, and Java libraries others have written)

Third, the Prediction API now supports OAuth. Documentation for how to use OAuth at Google can be found here and with more specifics on our libraries page (posting very soon).

Fourth, in case you’re looking for inspiration, here are some uses from across the web of developers using the Prediction API: Entunne.com, a GUI (source code), a movie critic, and an automatic bug prioritizer.

Fifth, if you’d like your app to be featured on the Prediction API page or you’d like to be featured as a partner, please contact travi...@google.com with a description of how you’re working with the API.

Finally, as part of our ongoing efforts to provide a more dependable service, we’re pleased to introduce prices for an upcoming, out-of-labs, paid service for certain levels of usage. As before, we will continue to offer a free service, but you may wish to consider our new paid offering for commercial and non-commercial uses requiring higher capacity QPS and more reliable performance. As a preview user, your use of the preview API will continue to be free for three months from today (until March 16) to thank you for your help in putting the API through its paces.

[FORTHCOMING] Free Prediction API

• Limits: 20,000 queries overall, max. 100 predictions/day, 5MB trained per day, active for a maximum of six months

[FORTHCOMING] Standard Prediction API

• $10 monthly fee per account
• Includes 10,000 free predictions per month
• $0.002 per MB trained (maximum one-time dataset: 100MB)
• $0.50 per 1000 predictions*

*Please contact us if you intend to make more than 40,000 predictions per day, as each Prediction API account has a default hard limit of 60,000 predictions per day.

NOTE: The Google Prediction API requires use of Google Storage for Developers, whose prices can be found here.

As always, please send along your thoughts and ideas to our Product Ideas page and discussion group. We are looking forward to providing you with many more new features in the near future.

-The Google Prediction API Team

FAQ
How can I calculate how much I will pay after March 16?
You can monitor your usage in the APIs Console, and calculate which plan your usage would fall under and how much you might be charged.

What happens if I make fewer than 10,000 predictions in a month?
You will be charged our monthly access fee of $10 in addition to charges incurred for any training you perform.

What’s an account?
An account is an individual project using the Prediction API.

What happens after my free account has exceeded 20,000 queries or been active for more than six months?
To continue to use the API, your project will be required to transition to the Standard Prediction API.

Are my Google Storage charges included?
Google Storage is billed independently of the Google Prediction API. Please visit their pricing page for more details.

Will new users who sign up be charged?
We are announcing prices today to give you the longest possible lead time before you are billed for your use of the service. In the short term, new users will not be charged, but that will change in the new year.

What about student/educator users?
Students and educators who have signed up are welcome to continue using the API for free until March 16 and afterward through the free and standard APIs. In the future, we hope to better accommodate the needs of students and educators.