CurrencyAPI Alternative: AllRatesToday

currencyapi.com is a polished product, but the free tier is small and updates infrequently. AllRatesToday gives you real-time 60-second rates, any base currency, and low EUR pricing.

currencyapi.com is a clean, well-documented currency API with a generous currency list and a polished developer experience. The catch is the free tier: per their public pricing page it's limited to a few hundred requests per month with an infrequent update cadence, and real-time-grade data sits on the paid plans. If you want fresh rates without stepping up to their higher tiers, AllRatesToday serves 60-second real-time mid-market rates on every plan — free included — with low, predictable EUR pricing when you grow.

At a glance

Pricing and feature details are based on each provider's public pricing pages and may change. Check the vendor's site for the latest figures.

Why teams switch from CurrencyAPI to AllRatesToday

1. Real-time data on the free tier

CurrencyAPI's free plan updates infrequently — fine for a portfolio widget, stale for anything a user transacts against. AllRatesToday's free tier uses the same 60-second real-time pipeline as the paid plans, sourced from institutional interbank market data.

2. A lower-cost step up when you outgrow free

When a free quota stops being enough, the question is what the first paid step costs. AllRatesToday's entry plan is €4.99/mo for 5,000 requests, including historical rates and commercial use, with €9.99 and €49.99 tiers above it — see pricing.

3. Simple Bearer-token auth and clean endpoint shapes

One base URL, standard Authorization: Bearer headers, and consistent source/target parameters across latest, historical, and central-bank endpoints. The API docs fit on one page, and official SDKs cover JS, Python, PHP and React.

4. Official central bank rates on the same key

Market feeds — CurrencyAPI's and everyone else's — answer "what does the pair trade at?" For invoicing, customs, and audit you often need the official published rate instead. That's a capability CurrencyAPI doesn't offer and AllRatesToday treats as a first-class product.

Official central bank rates — the part no market feed offers

Beyond live market rates, AllRatesToday serves the official published rates of 54 central banks and three tax authorities (HMRC, US Treasury, Swiss BAZG) under the same API key — the ECB reference rate for EU accounting, the Banxico FIX that legally settles USD obligations in Mexico, HMRC's monthly customs rates, and more, each under the bank's own publication date. (Our central bank API comparison covers the landscape.)

Drop-in code example

The request shape maps closely, so migration is mostly a hostname and parameter-name change:

// Before — currencyapi.com
fetch('https://api.currencyapi.com/v3/latest?apikey=YOUR_KEY&base_currency=USD&currencies=EUR,GBP')

// After — AllRatesToday (Bearer header, source/target params)
fetch('https://allratestoday.com/api/v1/rates?source=USD&target=EUR,GBP', {
  headers: { Authorization: 'Bearer art_live_xxxxx' }
})
  .then(r => r.json())
  .then(rows => console.log(rows));

// Keyless single-pair lookup:
fetch('https://allratestoday.com/api/rate?source=USD&target=EUR')
  .then(r => r.json())
  .then(({ rate }) => console.log(rate));

Honest pros and cons

FAQ

Is AllRatesToday free?

Yes — the free tier includes real-time rates for 160+ currencies with HTTPS, no credit card required. Historical data and commercial use start on the €4.99/mo plan.

How fresh are the rates compared to CurrencyAPI's free plan?

AllRatesToday updates every 60 seconds on all plans. CurrencyAPI's free plan updates far less often per their public pricing page — check their site for the current cadence.

Do you cover crypto?

AllRatesToday focuses on fiat currencies (160+) plus official central-bank and tax-authority rates. If crypto pairs are core to your product, CurrencyAPI may fit better there.

Compare with other providers