# How product data APIs are priced

> The pricing models product data and pricing APIs use, what actually drives the monthly bill, and how to estimate a real month before you sign up.

*Source: https://shopsavvy.com/learn/product-data-api-pricing · Published 2026-10-12*

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## The pricing models you will see

Vendors meter different things, so the same workload can cost very different amounts depending on the model. Here is how a few of them describe their own pricing, as published on their sites on the date shown.

| Model | Example | How it is metered | Checked |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Throughput (tokens per minute) | Keepa API | Monthly plans sized by tokens generated per minute; each requested product costs at least one token, offer data costs more. Unused tokens expire after 60 minutes. | 2026-10-12 |
| Request volume | Go-UPC | Monthly plans by request volume; cancel any time from the dashboard. | 2026-10-12 |
| Daily request limits with overage | UPCitemdb | Free tier with no signup; paid plans by daily request limits, with overage billed per 100 lookups or 10 searches. | 2026-10-12 |
| Credits per product | PriceAPI | Monthly credit plans; one credit per product looked up, more for extra offer pages or realtime data; per-credit overage. | 2026-10-12 |
| Records downloaded | Datafiniti | Monthly plans by records downloaded, across its data types; annual discounts. | 2026-10-12 |
| Per request or per successful page | Amazon scraping APIs | Usually per request or per successful page, sometimes with monthly bundles. | 2026-10-12 |

ShopSavvy’s Data API uses credits: each operation has a fixed credit cost, and monthly plans include a credit allowance (Starter $49 for 1,000, Professional $199 for 10,000, Scale $499 for 50,000), with Enterprise priced by quote above that.

[Side-by-side comparisons](https://shopsavvy.com/compare/product-data-apis): Starting prices, models and trade-offs for the main product data APIs, each with its source and check date.

## What actually drives the bill

- How many products you look up, and how often. A thousand SKUs checked daily is thirty times the lookups of the same list checked monthly.
- Which data you ask for. Current offers at every retailer usually cost more than a product record; price history adds a charge for the length of the window.
- Whether misses are charged. Barcodes that match nothing, and products with no offers, cost money on some APIs and nothing on others.
- How many retailers you need per product, if the vendor prices per retailer or per page fetched.
- Refreshes. Some services charge every time they re-check a price you are monitoring; others charge once to schedule it.

## What each ShopSavvy operation costs

| Operation | Credits |
| --- | --- |
| Retrieving Product Details | 1 credit per product found |
| Searching Products by Keyword | 1 credit per product returned |
| Current Offers (All Retailers) | 3 credits per product |
| Current Offers (Single Retailer) | 2 credits per product |
| Price History | Offer cost per product + 1 credit per day of the window (the per-day component is charged once per request, not per product) — charged only when offers are found |
| Schedule Product Monitoring | 1 credit per product (refreshes are not charged) |
| Browse Deals | 1 credit per 10 deals returned |
| TLDR Product Review | 1 credit per product (0 when no review exists) |
| Batch Product Lookup | 1 credit per product found (+ 3 per product that has offers when including offers, + 1 per product that has a review when including reviews) |

Errors cost nothing, and identifiers that match no product, or products with no offers, cost 0 credits. Every response reports the credits it used and how many remain.

## Two worked examples

A barcode-scanning app that looks up 3,000 codes a month at every retailer, where 70% of codes come back with offers: 2,100 products × 3 credits = 6,300 credits a month, which fits Professional ($199 a month for 10,000 credits).

A repricing feed that checks 1,000 SKUs at one retailer every day: 1,000 × 30 × 2 credits = 60,000 credits a month, which is more than any self-serve plan includes, so a custom plan. Checking every other day halves it, which is why the frequency question comes first.

[Product data API cost calculator](https://shopsavvy.com/tools/product-data-api-cost-calculator): Put in your own volumes, hit rate and history needs and see the credits and the cheapest plan.

## Costs that are not on the pricing page

- Rate limits. A cheap plan that caps requests below your peak forces a bigger plan or a queue (ShopSavvy: 1,000 requests per rolling hour per account, up to 100 identifiers per request).
- Overage and hard stops. Find out whether running out means an overage bill or refused requests until the period resets.
- Currency and region. A plan priced in another currency, or data from another marketplace, changes the real cost.
- Refunds and commitments. Read the cancellation and refund terms, and whether annual plans lock you in.
- Your own engineering time to integrate, match identifiers and store what you need to keep.

[Web scraping vs a product data API](https://shopsavvy.com/learn/scraping-vs-product-data-api): When building it yourself costs less, and when it does not.

## Frequently asked questions

**How much does a product data API cost?** It depends on the pricing model and your volume, and entry prices differ by vendor and currency; shopsavvy.com/compare/product-data-apis lists each one’s published starting price with its source and check date. ShopSavvy’s Data API starts at $49 a month for 1,000 credits. Estimate your own month from products, frequency and the data you need before comparing.

**Am I charged when a barcode is not found?** On the ShopSavvy Data API, no: identifiers that match nothing and products with no offers cost 0 credits, and errors are free. Other APIs differ, so check each one’s rules for misses.

**Is a free tier enough to evaluate an API?** A free tier or trial shows the response format, but test with your own product list at realistic volume. The ShopSavvy Data API has no free tier; the Starter plan has a 14-day trial, and the playground and the MCP server can be tried without a key.

## Related

- [Product data API guide](https://shopsavvy.com/learn/product-data-api-guide)
- [Product data API cost calculator](https://shopsavvy.com/tools/product-data-api-cost-calculator)
- [Data API plans](https://shopsavvy.com/data)
- [Product data APIs compared](https://shopsavvy.com/compare/product-data-apis)
- [Data API playground](https://shopsavvy.com/data/playground)