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Alex Spinov
Alex Spinov

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5 Free APIs That Replaced My Paid SaaS Subscriptions (Saving $847/year)

#discuss #api #python #productivity

Last year I was paying $847/year for SaaS tools that I replaced with free API calls.

Here's exactly what I dropped and what replaced each one:

1. Email Verification ($29/mo → Free)

Replaced: ZeroBounce ($29/month for 2,500 checks)
With: EmailRep.io API (free, no key needed)

import requests

email = "test@example.com"
resp = requests.get(f"https://emailrep.io/{email}")
data = resp.json()

print(f"Reputation: {data['reputation']}")
print(f"Suspicious: {data['suspicious']}")
print(f"Profiles found: {data['references']}")
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Limitation: 1,000 queries/day. But for my needs (checking leads before outreach), that's plenty.

2. Security Monitoring ($49/mo → Free)

Replaced: Snyk Pro ($49/month per project)
With: NVD API (free, no key) + GitHub Advisory Database

import requests

# Check any package for vulnerabilities
package = "log4j"
url = f"https://services.nvd.nist.gov/rest/json/cves/2.0?keywordSearch={package}"
resp = requests.get(url)
vulns = resp.json()["vulnerabilities"]

print(f"Found {len(vulns)} vulnerabilities for '{package}'")
for v in vulns[:3]:
    cve = v["cve"]
    print(f"  {cve['id']}: {cve['descriptions'][0]['value'][:80]}...")
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3. Academic Research Tools ($19/mo → Free)

Replaced: ResearchGate Premium ($19/month)
With: OpenAlex API + Semantic Scholar API (both free, no keys)

# Search 250M+ academic papers
resp = requests.get("https://api.openalex.org/works?search=machine+learning&per_page=5")
for work in resp.json()["results"]:
    print(f"{work['title'][:60]}")
    print(f"  Citations: {work['cited_by_count']}")
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OpenAlex alone gives you 250M+ papers, citations, author data, institution info — all for free. No rate limit issues.

4. Market Data Dashboard ($39/mo → Free)

Replaced: TradingView Pro ($39/month)
With: FRED API (free key, 120 req/min) for macroeconomic data

# Track any economic indicator
FRED_KEY = "your_free_key"

def get_indicator(series_id):
    url = f"https://api.stlouisfed.org/fred/series/observations"
    params = {"series_id": series_id, "api_key": FRED_KEY, 
              "file_type": "json", "sort_order": "desc", "limit": 1}
    return requests.get(url, params=params).json()["observations"][0]

for sid, name in [("GDP", "GDP"), ("UNRATE", "Unemployment"), ("CPIAUCSL", "CPI")]:
    obs = get_indicator(sid)
    print(f"{name}: {obs['value']} ({obs['date']})")
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I won't pretend this replaces TradingView's charts — but for the data I actually needed (macro indicators for reports), FRED is strictly better.

5. DNS/SSL Monitoring ($12/mo → Free)

Replaced: SSLMate ($12/month)
With: crt.sh API (free, no key)

# Find all SSL certificates for any domain
domain = "example.com"
resp = requests.get(f"https://crt.sh/?q={domain}&output=json")
certs = resp.json()

print(f"Found {len(certs)} certificates for {domain}")
for cert in certs[:5]:
    print(f"  {cert['common_name']} — expires {cert['not_after']}")
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Total Savings

Tool Was Paying Now Paying
Email verification $29/mo $0
Security monitoring $49/mo $0
Research tools $19/mo $0
Market data $39/mo $0
SSL monitoring $12/mo $0
Total $148/mo ($1,776/yr) $0

Ok, I'm being honest — some of the SaaS tools have features I can't replicate with APIs alone (TradingView charts, Snyk's CI integration). But for my specific use cases, the free APIs covered 100% of what I was actually using.

My Question

What SaaS tools have you replaced with free APIs? Or conversely — what's a SaaS tool you'll never replace because the API alternative is too much work?

I've been cataloging free APIs (121+ tools on GitHub) and I keep finding more that could replace paid tools. But I'm curious what others have found.

Part of my Free APIs You Didn't Know About series.

Need custom dev tools, scrapers, or API integrations? I build automation for dev teams. Email spinov001@gmail.com — or explore awesome-web-scraping.

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