When you search for a location does this cost credits? One would assume not, but then again getting directions cost credits (a service that is free in google maps) so I thought I may as well ask the question.
Depending on your workflow, searching for an address won't cost any credits. There are two ways to find a location in ArcGIS Online, Geocoding and Geosearch. A Geocoding workflow will use credits, where a Geosearch workflow will not use any credits.
The differences between a Geocode and Geosearch services are outlined in the below paragraphs:
What are Geocoding Services? Geocoding and geosearch capabilities are built into many ArcGIS products.The primary purpose of geocoding services is to convert an address or other identifier (such as postal code) to an x,y coordinate and save the result to an existing record in a database. Batch geocoding falls into this category.
What is a Geosearch Service? This service provides the ability to search for a feature or point-of-interest based on an address or keyword, and then zoom to that location. The result might be displayed on the map, but the result is not stored for later use. Geosearch does not use any service credits.
