OpenAlex data is and will remain available at no cost. Our data snapshot is totally free for bulk download. The API is a freemium service: you get $1 free every day, and after that you pay for what you use. We sell services, not data.Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://developers.openalex.org/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
Getting an API Key
To use the API at scale, you need a key. It’s free—just make an account (takes 30 seconds) and copy your key from openalex.org/settings/api. Then addapi_key=YOUR_KEY to your API calls:
What You Can Do for Free Every Day
Your free API key gives you $1 of free usage every day. With that, you can do a mix of:| Action | Calls | Results | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Get a single entity | Unlimited | Unlimited | Look up a work by DOI |
| List+filter | 10,000 | 1,000,000 | All works from MIT in 2024 |
| Search | 1,000 | 100,000 | Full-text search for “CRISPR” |
| Content download | 100 | 100 PDFs | Download a paper’s full text |