Why elevation data gets treated as an afterthought
Elevation data rarely gets its own line on a pricing page, and that absence tells you something real about how seriously it actually gets built.
Tag
#pricing
The case against charging extra for basic authentication methods
A header, a bearer token, and a query parameter all authenticate a request the same way. Charging more for one of them is charging for a preference, not a feature.
What a coupon code says about a company's pricing confidence
A permanent 20 percent off coupon floating around the internet is not a discount. It is evidence that the listed price was never the real price.
A simple cost model for comparing location data vendors
Comparing geocoding vendors on price alone misses real costs elsewhere. Here is a simple model that accounts for more than the per-request rate.
Batch limits: matching what the big providers already allow
Batch requests on My Geocode are sized to match what large providers already support, so an existing batch integration should not need resizing.
What "unlimited requests" should mean, precisely
Unlimited should be a testable claim, not a mood. If a plan has a real ceiling anywhere, that number belongs on the pricing page, not the word unlimited.
Build a currency-aware pricing page from IP data
Show a visitor a price in a currency they recognize by detecting their country from IP, while keeping your own settlement currency fixed.
Why per-country pricing tiers are a bad idea
Charging more to look up an address in one country than another treats geography itself as a pricing lever instead of plain, ordinary data to serve.
Coupon codes for teams moving from a competitor
Coupon codes are now available in the dashboard, giving teams switching from another provider an extra reason to make the move now.
The case for treating postal code lookups as first class
A postal code endpoint priced and documented like an afterthought will get built like one too. Treating it seriously starts with treating it equally.
The real cost of a provider's free tier changing overnight
A free tier that gets cut without warning does not just cost the provider goodwill. It breaks whatever the customer built on top of an assumption that was never guaranteed.
Why we would rather lose a sale than hide a limit in fine print
A customer who signs up not understanding a limit is a customer who leaves angry later. Telling them up front costs a sale sometimes. It is still the better trade.
Network allowance: why a shared office shares one quota
The free daily allowance is counted per network, not per address, so a shared office or building draws from one pool rather than many.
What "enterprise-grade" usually means in this industry
Enterprise-grade often just means the real price and the real usage limits are hidden behind a private sales call instead of a public pricing page.
Rate limits, explained in plain language
Rate limits on My Geocode are simpler than they sound: a free daily allowance per network and per key, then prepaid credit or Unlimited coverage.
Why batch pricing should match single-request pricing
A thousand lookups sent one at a time and a thousand lookups sent as a batch are the same amount of work. The price should not depend on how they were packaged.
What a free tier is actually for
A free tier is not a discount, and it is not bait for a sales call. It is the smallest useful amount of a product a developer needs to find out if it fits.
Prepaid credit and Unlimited packages, explained
Once free allowances run out, usage draws on prepaid credit at a fixed rate or an Unlimited package, with the same pricing on every endpoint.
Why sandbox environments should be free
A sandbox that costs money just to test in is not really a sandbox at all. It is a paid tier wearing a testing costume for the pricing page.
Why flat pricing beats hidden overage fees
An overage fee only shows up on the invoice you did not expect. Flat, published pricing lets you calculate the cost before you ever place the call.
Why we count bulk requests per item, not per call
A batch call with a thousand addresses still does a thousand separate lookups. Counting it as one request would just hide where the real usage actually went.
What per-product billing gets wrong about how APIs are used
Real applications mix geocoding, IP lookups, and time zone calls in a single request path. Billing them as separate products ignores how they are used together.
Open time zone data should not be a premium feature
Time zone lookups run on a public, actively maintained data source. Charging a separate premium for that lookup does not reflect a real added cost.
The trouble with "unlimited" plans that quietly aren't
Unlimited is supposed to mean no cap. Read the fine print on many unlimited API plans and you will often find a fair use policy that quietly says otherwise.
How we count a bulk request: one item, one unit
A single call with a hundred addresses inside it counts as a hundred requests, not one. Here is why we count bulk calls by item instead of by call.
Why we priced this per request, not per seat
A per-request price matches what an API actually costs to run. Seat pricing measures headcount, not usage, and geocoding traffic rarely follows either.
Keyless access: 2,500 free lookups a day, no signup required
No account, no card and no key needed to start. Any address gets up to 2,500 free geocoding, IP, timezone and elevation requests a day.