Open Exchange Rates Pricing vs AllRatesToday: Which Exchange Rate API Is Cheaper in 2026?
Open Exchange Rates' pricing is straightforward on the surface: $12/month Developer, $47/month Enterprise, $97/month Unlimited, plus a Forever Free plan with 1,000 requests/month. The trick is reading what each tier gates.
Several features that most apps need — non-USD base currency, the conversion endpoint, 10-minute updates — are only available starting at Developer or Unlimited. By the time you've unlocked the basics, the monthly cost can exceed what you'd pay for a fully-featured tier elsewhere.
This article compares the two providers' pricing dollar-for-dollar and explains which tier you'd actually land on for common use cases.
Open Exchange Rates' plan breakdown
| Plan | Price | Requests / month | Updates | Base currency | Conversion endpoint |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 1,000 | Hourly | USD only | No |
| Developer | $12/mo ($120/yr) | 10,000 | Hourly | Any | Yes |
| Enterprise | $47/mo ($470/yr) | 100,000 | Hourly | Any | Yes |
| Unlimited | $97/mo ($970/yr) | Unlimited | 10 min | Any | Yes |
Key things to notice:
- Real-time-ish data (10-minute updates) only appears on the $97/mo tier.
- Every tier is hourly except Unlimited. There is no "true real-time" tier.
- The conversion endpoint is paid-only — $12/mo minimum.
- Any non-USD base currency requires paid — $12/mo minimum.
What Open Exchange Rates' tiers actually cost to unlock basic features
If your product needs any of these:
- Non-USD base currency (EUR, GBP, INR, AUD, etc.)
- The
/api/convert.jsonendpoint - Faster than hourly updates
...then the effective floor is:
- $12/month for Developer (non-USD base, conversion endpoint, hourly updates).
- $97/month for Unlimited (10-minute updates).
AllRatesToday's pricing approach
AllRatesToday bundles the features most teams need into every plan — including the free tier:
| Feature | Free | Paid |
|---|---|---|
| Update frequency | 60 seconds | 60 seconds |
| Base currency | Any | Any |
| Historical data | Yes (one request per range) | Yes |
| Conversion endpoint | Yes | Yes |
| HTTPS, CORS | Yes | Yes |
| Official SDKs | Yes | Yes |
| MCP / DeepSeek | Yes | Yes |
Paid tiers raise request quotas and add higher rate limits — but no core feature is gated behind them.
Dollar-for-dollar: three real scenarios
Scenario 1: European SaaS pricing display (EUR base, 5,000 lookups/month)
OpenExchangeRates requires Developer plan ($12/mo).
- Free plan fails: USD-only base currency.
- Developer plan: $144/year, 10,000 req/month, hourly updates, any base.
AllRatesToday covers it on the free tier.
- Free plan: 300 req/month + 60-second rates. But 5,000 lookups/month exceeds the free cap.
- With server-side caching (one hourly fetch serves all pageviews): 720 req/month — still over.
- With 5-minute caching: 8,640 req/month — still over.
- Realistic path: a paid plan sized for 5,000-10,000 req/month. For apples-to-apples, call it comparable to OXR Developer.
Verdict: similar total cost, but AllRatesToday ships 60-second updates vs OXR hourly. You pay the same and get fresher data.
Scenario 2: US e-commerce checkout (USD base, 2,000 lookups/month)
OpenExchangeRates Free works.
- USD-only base is fine for a US product.
- 1,000 req/month limit → either cache aggressively or upgrade to Developer ($12/mo).
AllRatesToday's free tier is tight at 2,000 lookups/month.
- Same deal: cache aggressively or use a small paid tier.
Verdict: OXR Free is cheaper here if you can fit in 1,000 req/month and don't care about hourly vs 60-second. Otherwise costs are similar.
Scenario 3: Analytics dashboard with year-to-date historical (1 year × 5 pairs, reloaded 50x/day)
OpenExchangeRates:
-
time-series.jsoncounts 1 request per day returned. - 365 days × 5 pairs × 50 loads/day × 30 days = 2,737,500 requests/month.
- This is well beyond Unlimited's "unlimited" threshold in practice (expect throttling/pricing conversation).
AllRatesToday:
-
historical-ratescounts 1 request per range. - 5 pairs × 50 loads/day × 30 days = 7,500 requests/month.
Verdict: 365x less quota consumption for the same user experience.
Per-feature cost rollup
For each feature, here's the minimum monthly cost to unlock it:
| Feature | OpenExchangeRates | AllRatesToday |
|---|---|---|
| 60-second rate updates | Not available at any tier | Free |
| 10-minute rate updates | $97/mo | Free |
| Hourly updates | Free | Free |
| Non-USD base currency | $12/mo | Free |
| Conversion endpoint | $12/mo | Free |
| Historical time-series (365 days) | $0 at 365 reqs or $12/mo for comfort | Free (1 request) |
| Official SDK | Not available | Free |
| MCP server | Not available | Free |
When Open Exchange Rates' pricing is competitive
- You're building a USD-only product (US e-commerce, US SaaS, US fintech).
- Hourly data is acceptable.
- You don't need the conversion endpoint.
- You already have an Open Exchange Rates integration and churn isn't worth a few dollars saved.
When AllRatesToday is the clear price winner
- Any product whose home currency isn't USD.
- Anything where fresher-than-hourly data matters.
- Analytics/dashboards that pull historical ranges.
- Teams that use AI coding assistants and want MCP integration.
Get your free AllRatesToday API key — every feature unlocked, 60-second rates, any base currency, and historical data, at $0. No credit card required.
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