It’s been a while since we last changed our prices (14 months to be precise), and this time we decided to go one step further and even change the pricing model. Ever since we started WhoAPI, we had “per minute” limits, which confused some of our users because it didn’t make sense to them; no other parsed API out there had a “per minute” limit. They were selling a number of bulk requests you could do in a month, and that was it. If we were going to do the same, it meant changing our system completely. As I am typing this, we are doing exactly that.
As of March 1, you will no longer be blocked per minute on your WhoAPI usage. For example, our whois API will have packages: 3,000; 6,000; 12,000; 24,000; 48,000; 100,000; 200,000; 400,000; 800,000. Our other APIs like Screenshot API, Geolocation API (discontinued in 2022), or SSL API will have prices and packages of their own. You can always contact us for a custom number of requests.
We are separating our APIs. Every API will have its own price
This is the second-biggest change we are making in our pricing model. All our APIs will have separate prices. We thought long and hard about this, and we concluded that if we were to do this, we had to again change parts of our system completely, but since we were already making the change in the way we cap usage, we thought it was the perfect time to separate our APIs as well. On many occasions we had confused users asking if the package included whois API requests or not. Now we are able to completely separate them. From now on, if you need our screenshot API or our ranks API, you select that API, the package you need, and off you go. You are now paying only for the API you want to use.
In the admin you can see all the APIs you are subscribed to, with the “cancel subscription” button right next to them. In the past, several users had the feeling they were paying for something they hadn’t used at all. For example, they wanted to use our whois API and our geo API, and we allowed them to use our other APIs as well. Now this won’t be the case. You can use only the APIs with active subscriptions.
Some of you may think, “That’s great, but now I will have to have different API keys for different APIs!” Not true! One API key handles all our APIs. So once you sign up, you get a single API key that handles all our APIs! We will list all the new prices below, and it might look overwhelming now that each API has its own price. But once you log in, you will have the ability to choose the API from the dropdown list, and then the price for that specific API will appear. If you want to get a yearly discount, just switch to yearly and the yearly prices will appear. Also, on our website, the price for each API will appear separately on that API page. So you know which price you are looking at for which API. It doesn’t make sense to show them all at once.
For example, if you are looking at our domain availability API, you will see only the price for our domain availability API. And if you are interested in our whois API, you will hop to that page, and check the price for our whois API. Later, when you log in, you can upgrade any of these APIs at a single “upgrade” location page. This post is the only place where we list all the prices and packages, just because it is a big change, and we want to be transparent and show you all the changes we are making! If you think you want to upgrade on any of our APIs, the process is individual, and you can evaluate them one by one.
What about old clients, with active packages?
If you are an active paid client, first of all, we love you because You are the reason this website is running today. So we really want to make sure you are happy with WhoAPI. We researched current usage, and found out that some of our clients are using less and paying more than some clients who are paying less and using more. You might have to read that once again, but the conclusion was, our old pricing model wasn’t working (it was upside down) and we had to change it! Now, the clients that are paying more than they need to can switch to smaller packages and enjoy their savings. But fear not – you were already getting a great deal. How do we know? We looked at how much money we would be making if all our active clients were paying our competitors’ prices. It was more than twice as much! An astounding 145 percent more, to be exact. We haven’t even compared the pricing with the most expensive company out there (you know who we are talking about). Again, fear not – we are not going to charge as much as them!
To our active clients that are using a lot more and paying a lot less (because they created their subscriptions a long time ago, before anybody knew about WhoAPI): If you get a limit notification, please contact us if you are not happy with the new pricing model. We will do everything we can to find a model that works for you.
Another thing worth noting when it comes to active clients: Your account will switch to the new model on the date your subscription is made, not on March 1.
Why not keep both? Per minute and bulk!
We thought about that, but we wanted to make things as simple as possible! Having separate models would probably confuse an already confusing situation. Besides, you have more options now (no more per-minute limits), and our cheapest packages are below our old $49 cheapest package. Now the packages start as low as $9. That’s nine US dollars, and you are good to go!
Again, why switch to the new model?
If you are wondering why we didn’t switch to the new model earlier since it was upside down, well, we had to improve our system a lot and change the core of how we track the number of requests that are being made. And today I am happy to announce that we have improved our system a lot, and now we can switch to the new model! In the past few months we’ve made several great improvements, and that gave us the confidence to research whether it made sense to switch to the new model. After we ran all the numbers and concluded that it does make sense, we started working on the new model.
We think the prices are competitive, and we might even do a head-to-head comparison in the future. Just to spare you the time of Googling and browsing the web yourself.
We also think the new prices are fairer for both parties! Your usage will be better reflected, give you more options (no more per-minute limits), and you pay only for what you use (no more pushing something you haven’t paid for).
Also, since we are taking on more risk (again, no more per-minute limits) and we improved the service in the past 14 months, the $ per request ratio will increase compared to old packages on the whois API, BUT we are still cheaper than many and competitive with others. Also, now that we have separated our other APIs, we can provide much more competitive prices on our other APIs and especially on our screenshot API, IP geolocation API (discontinued in 2022), blacklists API and domain availability API. So actually for all our other APIs, the $ per request ratio will decrease on all our APIs except our whois API.
Also worth noting:
- All new signups are allowed
500 free requests on any of our APIs. 10,000 requests (introduced in the 2021 update) - We’ve decided to completely discontinue our searchengines API, tracert API, and pingservice API. (Not to be mistaken with our ping API – that will remain active)
Here is the unofficial WhoAPI pricing that is set to go live on March, 1st 2017.
Unofficial WhoAPI pricing 2017
