1- Caching won't help. It seems I'm being limited on just "map loads", up to 25k https://developers.google.com/maps/pricing-and-plans/#detail... After that I'm billed $0.50 per 1000 requests, and that's still a lot since we have around 200k loads a day (plus not to mention we're growing like crazy expecting to triple that amount by the end of this year). And the costs is just too damn high for us because our widget is like an ad impression..it doesn't always convert and requires lots of loads.
2- If I go OSM, or Bing maps, I might as well do the rest because I'd be spending more time trying to connect the services together. It wasn't meant to be changed or scaled..
I remember IndieHackers when it was launched here in HN, very good reads. I'll give it a try, thanks man!