Free commodity price APIs in 2026: what each one actually gives you

Most commodity APIs that call themselves free give you one of three things: a small permanent quota, a short trial, or delayed or end-of-day values. The useful question is which of those fits the app you are building, and whether the licence lets you ship it. Below are seven options, with every limit and price taken from the provider's own pricing page on October 23, 2026.

Comparison table

Checked October 23, 2026 against each linked page. Providers change limits; follow the source link before you commit to one. "Freshness" is how old the latest value can be, as the provider describes it, which matters more for prices than response time.

EIA or OilPriceAPI?

If you only need official US weekly or monthly series and can wait for the next release, use the EIA API directly. It costs nothing, the series are authoritative, and a 5,000-row JSON page covers years of daily history for one series. The trade-off is timing: EIA publishes its daily spot prices once a week. The release of October 21, 2026 carried WTI Cushing through October 20, and the next one is due October 28.

OilPriceAPI carries some of those EIA series too (NY Harbor ULSD diesel is one, shown below with its own timestamp), and adds front-month futures for WTI, Brent and Henry Hub that are sampled several times an hour on trading days, plus marine fuels, European gas and metals that EIA does not publish. Every row comes back in one JSON shape with its unit and source timestamp. If your app needs a price from today rather than last week, or more than US government series, that is the gap a paid or capped-free API fills.

curl "https://api.oilpriceapi.com/v1/prices/latest?by_code=WTI_USD,BRENT_CRUDE_USD,NATURAL_GAS_USD,ULSD_DIESEL_USD" \
  -H "Authorization: Token YOUR_API_KEY"

Python examples

These use requests and an API key in the OILPRICEAPI_KEY environment variable. A comma-separated by_code returns data.prices[]; a single code returns data as one object.

Oil: WTI and Brent in one call

import os
import requests

API_KEY = os.environ["OILPRICEAPI_KEY"]

resp = requests.get(
    "https://api.oilpriceapi.com/v1/prices/latest",
    params={"by_code": "WTI_USD,BRENT_CRUDE_USD"},
    headers={"Authorization": f"Token {API_KEY}"},
    timeout=10,
)
resp.raise_for_status()

for row in resp.json()["data"]["prices"]:
    print(row["code"], row["price"], row["currency"], "per", row["unit"], row["created_at"])

Natural gas: Henry Hub

import os
import requests

resp = requests.get(
    "https://api.oilpriceapi.com/v1/prices/latest",
    params={"by_code": "NATURAL_GAS_USD"},
    headers={"Authorization": f"Token {os.environ['OILPRICEAPI_KEY']}"},
    timeout=10,
)
resp.raise_for_status()

gas = resp.json()["data"]  # a single code returns one object
print(f"Henry Hub: {gas['price']} {gas['currency']}/{gas['unit']} at {gas['created_at']}")

Diesel: check the age before you use it

import os
from datetime import datetime, timezone

import requests

resp = requests.get(
    "https://api.oilpriceapi.com/v1/prices/latest",
    params={"by_code": "ULSD_DIESEL_USD"},
    headers={"Authorization": f"Token {os.environ['OILPRICEAPI_KEY']}"},
    timeout=10,
)
resp.raise_for_status()
diesel = resp.json()["data"]

# EIA publishes this spot series weekly, so check the timestamp before using it.
observed = diesel.get("observed_at") or diesel["created_at"]
age = datetime.now(timezone.utc) - datetime.fromisoformat(observed.replace("Z", "+00:00"))
print(f"NY Harbor ULSD: {diesel['price']} USD/gallon, {age.days} days old")

For the full SDK walkthrough, see the Python oil price API tutorial.

Frequently asked questions

Is OilPriceAPI free?

Free plan: 50 requests/day, with no expiry. New accounts start with a 7-day trial: 10,000 requests, full API (except licensed datasets: aviation fuel pilot), no card. After the trial, you automatically continue on the Free plan. The Free plan is hard-capped and never billed.

Is the EIA API really free?

Yes. EIA data is provided free of charge with a registered API key. JSON requests return at most 5,000 rows, and EIA publishes its daily spot price series once a week.

Which free commodity API is best for a production app?

Check the licence before the limit. Twelve Data's Basic plan is for internal non-display use and API Ninjas' free plan excludes commercial use. EIA data is provided free of charge, subject to EIA's copyright and reuse policy, but its spot prices are published weekly. OilPriceAPI's Free plan has no expiry and is hard-capped, so it never bills.

Related

• Commodity price API for oil, gas and metals
• Best oil and commodity price APIs 2026: developer comparison
• Free oil price API alternatives
• EIA data through OilPriceAPI
• OilPriceAPI pricing