fshy / Crawling

OpenAlex

openalex.org · Crawling · 1 record · JSON

OpenAlex Crawling

★ qualifiesemailcardDrequest-rate

help.openalex.org/access/pricing/ · scholarly index · crawler-scraper/openalex · JSON · compare

Free tier	USD 1 of API usage a day with a free key; keyless requests at 10 a second unit requests; metered on request-count
Price	none stated
Per-object cap	not applicable: the unit is a request
Retention	the daily budget resets at midnight UTC
Egress	not applicable: JSON answers
Identity	email a free account gives the key; no payment method required
Limits	request-rate 10 requests a second keyless, 30 with a free key, 50 on an annual plan source per-object-cap basic paging stops at 10,000 results; beyond that needs cursor paging and a key; per_page maximum 100 source request-rate USD 1 of usage a day free, no payment method; prepaid usage in USD 1 increments expires 3 months after purchase source
Binding	request-rate
Interface	rest REST; cursor paging past the first page needs a free key
Tooling	not stated
Composes with	The works index behind the broker's research service; pages by an opaque cursor bound to the query
Reliability	no reliability event recorded
Notes	A dollar a day is a large allowance for this index because a search costs a few credits. The 10,000-result paging wall is the constraint that matters for a literature sweep.
Evidence rung	documented the quota and the rate limit are documented; the works API was called directly on 2026-10-22 (200, 30,469 bytes, meta.count 189601, X-RateLimit-Cost-USD 0.001), so the read path is probed and the verdict is unqualified
Checked	2026-10-22 (live); stale on 2026-11-21
Parsed numbers	`$.limits[0].value` limit:request-rate 10.0 requests

Evidence (4)

date	source	what it proved
2026-10-22	help.openalex.org/access/pricing/	every account gets USD 1 of API usage per day for free; no payment method required; prepaid usage expires 3 months after the most recent purchase
2026-10-22	docs.openalex.org/how-to-use-the-api/rate-limits-and-authent	no key 10 requests a second, free key or prepaid 30, annual 50; per_page maximum 100; basic paging limit 10,000 results; cursor paging requires a key
2026-10-22	withheld	200, provider openalex, 3 works, a cursor, and page 2 returned three different DOIs
2026-10-22	probe:https://api.openalex.org/works?search=retrieval+augmented+generation&per-page=2	direct call without the broker: 200, 30,469 bytes, meta.count 189601, X-RateLimit-Cost-USD 0.001 and X-RateLimit-Credits-Used 10, X-RateLimit-Limit 1000

Unknown or withheld values (3)

$.evidence[2].url private-url
$.reliability_note none-observed
$.tooling not-stated

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