CoinGecko is the go-to API for crypto market data — prices, market caps, volumes, historical charts and coin metadata across thousands of assets. Here's what it costs and how to start, including the free tier.
| Plan | Price | Limits |
|---|---|---|
| Demo (free) free tier | $0 | 100 calls/min, 10k credits/mo, Demo key |
| Basic new | $35/mo | 100k credits/mo, 300 req/min, standard endpoints |
| Analyst | $129/mo | 500k credits/mo, 500 req/min, Pro endpoints |
| Lite | $499/mo | 2M credits/mo, on-chain data, SLA |
CoinGecko's Demo plan is free and good for hobby projects, dashboards and prototypes — rate-limited at 100 calls/minute with a 10,000 credit monthly cap. You now need a free Demo API key even for the public endpoints. For production traffic or pro endpoints (like on-chain and granular historical data), you move to a paid plan.
1. Sign up at coingecko.com.
2. Open the Developer Dashboard (Account → Developer Dashboard).
3. Click Create API key — choose the free Demo key to start.
4. Use it via the x-cg-demo-api-key header (or the pro header on paid plans).
Fetch the Bitcoin price:
CoinCap and Binance's public API are free for basic price and market data (Binance is great for exchange-specific tickers and klines). CoinMarketCap has a comparable freemium API. For pure price feeds, the exchange APIs are often simpler and free; CoinGecko wins on breadth (thousands of coins, metadata, historical).
Trading the data you pull? Size and risk it with the crypto tools on RektCalc.
CoinGecko splits access into a free Demo plan and several paid Pro API tiers. The Demo plan is rate-limited to 100 calls per minute and is also governed by a monthly credit cap (around 10,000 calls per month), so it suits light dashboards and hobby projects rather than production traffic. Exact ceilings can shift, so treat these as the free-tier ballpark and check your dashboard for the current allowance.
Paid plans raise both the per-minute rate and the monthly call quota as you move up. Typical structure looks like this:
When you exceed the limit CoinGecko returns an HTTP 429 Too Many Requests response; the fix is to slow your request cadence, cache responses, and back off before retrying. If you are researching CoinGecko API rate limits for a production app, plan around the monthly credit cap as much as the per-minute rate, since batch jobs can burn a monthly quota quickly even at a low request rate.
Compare CoinGecko's pricing and limits with our CoinMarketCap and Binance API guides to pick the best crypto data source for your budget.
Yes — a free Demo tier (100 calls/min, 10k credits/month) that requires a free Demo API key. Paid plans add higher limits and Pro endpoints.
Sign up, open the Developer Dashboard, and create an API key. The Demo key is free and works immediately.
CoinGecko has the widest coverage and metadata. Exchange APIs (Binance, etc.) are free and ideal for specific tickers/candles. CoinMarketCap is a similar freemium alternative.
Not affiliated with CoinGecko. Prices are reference estimates — always verify on the official pricing page.