Best gold price API (2026), ranked
Seven gold price APIs ranked on provenance, gold-specific depth, free-tier usability, developer experience, and pricing transparency, using consistent criteria.
The ranking below weighs five things: whether a response discloses which source or exchange produced a price (provenance), how deep the gold-specific coverage goes beyond a single spot number (depth), whether the free tier is usable for a real project rather than a marketing gesture (free-tier usability), how well-suited the API is for modern integration including AI agents (developer experience), and whether pricing is stated plainly or requires a support ticket to understand (pricing transparency).
goldprice.dev is our own product, and it appears in this ranking. It's placed first below, with the reasoning shown alongside every other entry's, with the specific places a competitor wins outright named inside each entry.
goldprice.dev
Our productWins on provenance (a sources[] array with per-source license and timestamp on every response), developer experience (MCP with nine tools on every plan, including Free, plus an is_stale flag and no auto-bill overage), and gold-specific depth beyond spot: per-country dealer prices, a forward view, and a probability surface, all scoped to gold, silver, and copper only. Loses on metal breadth to Metals-API, on free-tier generosity to Gold-API.com, and on raw historical years to goldapi.io. Gold starts at $10/mo Physical; silver, copper, and commercial use join at $30/mo Pro.
goldapi.io
Best pick for historical depth and licensed sourcing: 20+ years of daily history and LBMA AM/PM fix redistribution rights, live since 2020, starting at $4.99/mo across 160+ currencies. Production pricing runs to $129/mo, SDKs are community-maintained rather than official, and there's no MCP offering as of April 2026. A strong, credible choice for anyone who values the LBMA relationship over agent-native tooling.
metals-api.com
The breadth leader: full precious-and-industrial-metals catalog, 170+ currencies, 15+ years of daily bars on long-tail metals, and a Fixer.io-compatible endpoint shape for easy migration. Entry price is $29/mo. No per-source provenance, no MCP, and no live oracle feed distinct from its historical data, so depth on any one metal takes a back seat to catalog width.
gold-api.com
The free-tier winner: unlimited real-time gold and silver pricing, no rate cap, no card required, with Bitcoin bundled on the same key. Historical and OHLC requests cap at 10/hour until the $10/mo Premium plan lifts it. No published methodology or source breakdown, and no MCP as of this writing. Best fit for a hobby project or simple widget rather than a production pricing engine.
metals.dev
The best-documented provenance among the blended-number catalogs: a dedicated authority endpoint names LBMA, LME, MCX, and IBJA as contributing sources, at a $1.79/mo entry price with a free 100-requests/month tier requiring no card. Historical depth is shallow (5+ years, 30-day max window per request) and there's no MCP integration. A reasonable middle ground on price and named sourcing.
MetalpriceAPI
The pricing-transparency standout for low-volume projects: seven clearly priced tiers from $3.99/mo (1,000 calls) to $55.99/mo (500,000 calls), each with a stated call quota rather than a vague rate limit. Covers gold, silver, and platinum spot only, with no WebSocket streaming and no MCP as of 2026-04-25. Best fit when matching spend to actual call volume matters more than catalog breadth.
Twelve Data
Worth including only if gold is one asset among many: a multi-asset platform (stocks, forex, crypto, indices, ETFs) serving XAU/USD and XAG/USD through a commodities endpoint, with confirmed WebSocket streaming and its own WS-credit pool. Credit-based tiers run from a free 800 calls/day to $832/mo Ultra. No MCP as of 2026-04-25, and futures-settlement symbols aren't clearly documented at the commodities-endpoint level.
FAQ
- Isn't this ranking biased since goldprice.dev is your own product?
- goldprice.dev is our product, and it's ranked first below, so judge the reasoning rather than take the placement on faith. The criteria are stated up front: provenance, gold-specific depth, free-tier usability, developer experience, and pricing transparency. Every entry, including our own, lists where a competitor genuinely wins. Metals-API beats us on metal and currency breadth, Gold-API.com beats us on free-tier generosity, and goldapi.io beats us on raw historical depth and LBMA sourcing.
- What does 'data provenance' mean in this ranking, and why weight it?
- Whether an API tells you which exchange, feed, or benchmark produced a given number, versus returning one blended value with no attribution. It matters for pricing engines and compliance-adjacent products where the source behind a number is part of the product rather than just the number itself.
- Which API should I pick if I only care about free-tier usability?
- gold-api.com. Its free tier is unlimited real-time gold and silver pricing with no rate cap and no card required, the most generous entry point on this list.
- Which API has the deepest historical data?
- goldapi.io, at 20+ years of daily history starting from its $4.99/mo plan. goldprice.dev's daily XAU history goes back further, to 1996, but that depth sits behind paid tiers rather than goldapi.io's cheaper entry point.
- Is any API on this list actually free for commercial use?
- Read each provider's terms directly before shipping. On goldprice.dev, commercial use requires Pro ($30/mo); several catalog competitors restrict commercial use on free tiers too, per their own pricing pages. Don't assume free-tier access means a clear commercial license.
- How often is this ranking updated?
- Each entry cites the source page's own last-verified date. Pricing and feature sets change; check the linked comparison page for the specific competitor before committing to a plan.