Authentication & Pricing

API keys, pricing tiers, and usage limits

OpenAlex data is and will remain available at no cost. Our data snapshot is totally free for bulk download. The API is a freemium service with free daily usage—$0.10/day with no key, or 10× that ($1/day) with a free API key—and after that you pay for what you use. We sell services, not data.

Getting an API Key

To use the API at scale, you need a key. It’s free—just make an account (takes 30 seconds) and copy your key from openalex.org/settings/api. Then add api_key=YOUR_KEY to your API calls:

curl "https://api.openalex.org/works?api_key=YOUR_KEY"

What You Can Do for Free Every Day

Your free API key gives you $1 of free usage every day. With that, you can do a mix of:

Action	Calls	Results	Example
Get a single entity	Unlimited	Unlimited	Look up a work by DOI
List+filter	10,000	1,000,000	All works from MIT in 2024
Search	1,000	100,000	Full-text search for “CRISPR”
Content download	100	100 PDFs	Download a paper’s full text

Without a key you get $0.10/day—a tenth of the above, enough to try the API. Get a free key for 10× the budget.

For full details on endpoint pricing, common activity costs, usage limit headers, query limits, and usage tips, see Authentication & Pricing in the API Reference.