Migrating a Zapier or Make automation to a new geocoding host
No-code automations built on a geocoding step need a different migration approach than custom code does. Here is how to handle that switch.
Moving off a Google Maps Platform elevation integration
Elevation lookups tend to be a quiet dependency, called from a hiking app's route profile feature, a drone flight planner checking terrain clearance, or a land survey tool, and rarely the reason a Google Maps Platform account exists in the first place. That makes it a good candidate to move independently of anything else in a broader Google integration, since the calling code is usually contained in one or two functions.
Google's Elevation API accepts one or more coordinate pairs and returns an elevation value in meters along with a resolution figure describing the precision of the underlying data sample. It is a compact response with little to parse, which keeps the migration itself fairly small in scope even though the underlying data source changes.
My Geocode runs elevation as a fully working endpoint with a straightforward request and response shape: send a coordinate, get back the ground elevation in meters. Since this is one of the lookups where real answers can be described directly rather than only the response shape, testing this migration against known reference points, a specific mountain summit or sea-level coastal location, is a reasonable way to build confidence before switching production traffic. Details are at /docs/elevation-lookup/.
A few things worth checking specifically for this move:
- Whether your code depends on Google's
resolutionfield for anything beyond display, since a resolution figure describes sampling precision differently across elevation data sources and any downstream logic depending on a specific resolution value deserves review - Whether elevation lookups happen in a batch (many coordinates in one call) or individually, since batch request shapes differ between providers and are worth testing at the batch sizes your application actually uses
- Whether elevation is called from client-side code directly, which is a reasonable moment to move the call server-side regardless of the destination provider
Authentication uses a key sent as X-API-Key, Authorization: Bearer, HTTP Basic auth, or a query parameter. There are 2,500 free requests a day with no key at all, and 2,500 more free per key per day counted per network, with prepaid credit at €0.0001 per request or an Unlimited key at €50 a month beyond that, priced the same as every other endpoint on the platform.
Optional extras beyond elevation itself, such as IP threat detail and network information relevant to other parts of an application, are available on compatibility hosts via mg_extras=1, though for a pure elevation migration like this one, the standalone endpoint is generally the simpler and more direct fit. Moving elevation on its own, ahead of a larger geocoding migration, is a low-risk way to start reducing dependence on a single account without committing to a bigger project right away.