Are Carto-based choropleth map tiles free for commercial use within Plotly maps?

šŸ“Š Plotly Python
1

Hi everyone, when creating maps using px.choropleth_map() (link to reference page), Iā€™ve found that many of the map_style options (e.g. ā€˜carto-darkmatterā€™, ā€˜carto-positronā€™, and the default ā€˜basicā€™ option) have copyright notices for both CARTO and OpenStreetMap.

Does anyone know what the terms of service are for these CARTO-based tiles? Are they free for commercial use, or only for non-commercial/educational use?

2

I reached out to CARTO with this same question. Their response was as follows:

ā€œYou would need a commercial license with CARTO to use base maps for any commercial purpose. Base maps can only be purchased as part of the CARTO platform license which starts around $20K/year.ā€

Given this information, it seems that it might be best for Plotly to switch its default map_style argument to one that does not require a CARTO license.