Guide · Updated August 2026

The Best Stock Market APIs in 2026

Eight providers compared on free tiers, fundamentals depth, global coverage, pricing, and AI-agent readiness — with the honest trade-offs of each.

Disclosure: this guide is published by Eulerpool. Competitor facts come from their public pricing pages (August 2026) — verify current terms with each provider.

#1

Eulerpool

Our pick

Full-stack financial data — 363+ endpoints covering fundamentals, quotes, ETFs, macro, crypto, insider trades, and congress trading for 42,000+ companies on 90+ exchanges. The 10,000 calls/month free tier is the largest in the category, fundamentals are included in every plan, and it is the only provider here with a native MCP server for AI agents. Yes, it is our own product — the numbers below are checkable.

Free tier

10,000 calls/mo

Paid from

$99/mo

Best for

Full-stack + AI agents

Watch out

Younger brand

#2

Polygon.io

The reference for US market data infrastructure: excellent tick-level and options data, WebSockets, and flat-file downloads. Fundamentals are comparatively thin and coverage is US-centric — pair it with a fundamentals provider for research use cases.

Free tier

5 calls/min, delayed

Paid from

$29/mo

Best for

US tick & options data

Watch out

Thin fundamentals

#3

Financial Modeling Prep

Broad fundamentals coverage at aggressive prices with a long endpoint list. Data quality on smaller international names can be inconsistent, and the free tier is capped at 250 calls/day with limited history.

Free tier

250 calls/day

Paid from

~$29/mo

Best for

Budget fundamentals

Watch out

Intl. data quality

#4

Alpha Vantage

The classic hobbyist entry point — simple API, decent docs, and a genuinely free tier. But 25 requests/day makes anything beyond toy projects impractical, and there is no streaming.

Free tier

25 calls/day

Paid from

$50/mo

Best for

Learning & prototypes

Watch out

Severe rate limits

#5

EODHD

Solid end-of-day price coverage across global exchanges at fair prices. Fundamentals and other datasets are sold as add-on packages, which makes the real total cost higher than the headline price.

Free tier

20 calls/day

Paid from

$20/mo

Best for

Global EOD prices

Watch out

Add-on pricing

#6

Finnhub

Good real-time US coverage and a generous per-minute free tier for quotes. Institutional-grade fundamentals and alternative data sit behind significantly more expensive tiers.

Free tier

60 calls/min (quotes)

Paid from

$50/mo

Best for

Real-time quotes

Watch out

Pricey fundamentals

#7

Bloomberg (B-PIPE / Data License)

The institutional gold standard with unmatched breadth and support. Enterprise contracts start in the tens of thousands per year, procurement takes months, and nothing is self-serve. If you have to ask the price, this is not your tier.

Free tier

None

Paid from

$10k+/yr

Best for

Large institutions

Watch out

Cost & procurement

#8

Refinitiv (LSEG)

Deep institutional datasets and long history, comparable to Bloomberg in scope. Same enterprise sales model: opaque pricing, long contracts, and integration overhead that only makes sense at scale.

Free tier

None

Paid from

$10k+/yr

Best for

Enterprise research

Watch out

Opaque pricing

Choosing a stock market API — FAQ

For monthly volume, Eulerpool offers the largest free tier at 10,000 calls/month with access to all endpoints. Finnhub is generous for real-time quote polling (60 calls/min but limited datasets). Alpha Vantage and EODHD cap free usage at 25 and 20 calls per day respectively, which suits learning but not real applications.

Bloomberg and Refinitiv lead on institutional depth but require enterprise contracts. Among self-serve APIs, Eulerpool and Financial Modeling Prep offer the deepest fundamentals — full income statements, balance sheets, and cash flows. Eulerpool includes them in every plan with 30+ years of history and as-reported plus standardized views.

Eulerpool is the only provider in this list with a native MCP (Model Context Protocol) server — 250+ tools that plug directly into Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT, and other MCP clients. Other APIs require writing custom tool definitions and glue code for each agent framework.

Start free and upgrade when you hit a real constraint: rate limits, delayed data, or missing datasets. A 10,000 calls/month free tier covers most prototypes and even small production apps. Paying makes sense once data becomes revenue-critical — typically $29-$99/month for indie products and $500-$2,000/month for funded startups.

Five things: (1) actual free-tier limits — per-day caps hide low monthly volume; (2) whether fundamentals cost extra; (3) international coverage if you need non-US markets; (4) licensing terms for redistribution or commercial display; (5) data accuracy — test 20 tickers you know against filings before integrating.

Try the #1 pick free

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