Google Places API v1

Operationalhigh

Every piece of business data in a grader scan — and the only paid call per scan.

checked 2m agoGoogle Cloud console ↗

Checks

Places API reachable

Google is not answering at all — no grader scan can produce business data.

100%

24h

100%

30d

GET https://places.googleapis.com/v1/places:searchTextexpects 403 or 401last 403 · 127ms · 2m ago

Places API billable call

No grader scan can produce business data.

A request that proves the key and quota work is billable, so it stays off. The liveness check above covers the outage case for free; quota and billing are watched in the Google Cloud console.

What it is

Autocomplete, place details, nearby benchmark, reputation summary and photo media all come from Places v1. lib/open-data-places.ts reads like a provider-neutral layer but delegates 100% to Google; there is no second source. If Places is unavailable or out of quota, a scan cannot produce a report.

Cost shape

Each scan makes several billable calls: one autocomplete session, one details lookup, one nearby search, and one photo resolution per image shown. Field masks are kept minimal in lib/google-places-client.ts specifically to hold the per-call cost down — widening a mask is a pricing decision, not a refactor.

Why it is not monitored automatically

Any request that would prove the API is healthy is a billable request. Rather than pay for a heartbeat every ten minutes, this system is documented and left unmonitored — the grader's own scan failures are the real signal, and quota lives in the Google Cloud console.

When it breaks

Symptom

Scans fail at the business-data step

Check

Google Cloud console → APIs & Services → Places API quota and billing status.

Fix

Raise quota or fix billing. There is no fallback provider to switch to.

Symptom

Costs climbing unexpectedly

Check

Whether GRADER_GOOGLE_DAILY_LIMIT / MONTHLY_LIMIT are set — unset means uncapped.

Fix

Set both and consider moving the counters to Upstash so they survive cold starts.

Breaks when this does

Restaurant Growth GraderLead-gen tool: scans a restaurant and returns a scored growth report.

Incident history

No incidents recorded for this system.