Esri have changed their online geocoding service from free to paid. If we are all moving to the Cloud we will have to pay.
The individual search to find a single location remains free which is why it worked on a test.
Google do the same except with a few more, free search on a few, but a cutoff at 50,000 addresses.
My performance was quoting using my own reference data to build a private locator on a local computer.
If you have access to a reference dataset you can build your own locator, but it is so difficult most people would rather buy the service.