goldprice.devAn online store that sells gold, silver or jewellery by weight needs the metal price on a schedule. A page view does not need its own request. The job is to fetch one rate on your server, cache it and recompute product prices from it. That makes request volume, commercial terms and uptime promises matter more than raw speed. goldprice.dev, GoldAPI.io and MetalpriceAPI return per-gram karat prices; Gold-API.com, Metals.dev and Metals-API need a purity multiplication or a unit parameter. We make goldprice.dev. Every rival fact below comes from that service's own pages, checked on 2 November 2026.
- A repricing job needs few requests. Refreshing every 15 minutes uses about 2,900 requests a month, which fits the 5,000 requests on goldprice.dev Free.
- Gold-API.com and goldprice.dev state that their free plans may be used commercially. MetalpriceAPI and Metals-API free plans are for personal or test use.
- MetalpriceAPI and Metals-API list WordPress plugins. GoldAPI.io publishes guides for Shopify and WooCommerce. goldprice.dev has no store plugin.
- None of the six offers an uptime SLA outside an enterprise tier. Some publish uptime claims or status pages, which are not guarantees, so read the terms before you promise a price to customers.
What an online store needs from the API
- A rate you can cache. Product prices follow the rate on your server, so one request every few minutes serves every visitor.
- Karat or unit handling. Per-gram prices by karat save you the multiplication and the rounding errors that come with it.
- Commercial terms. Showing a price on a public storefront is commercial use, and some free plans bar it.
- A plan you can leave running. The API key lives on your server, so a monthly cap or an overage charge decides whether a surprise traffic day costs money.
The six services at a glance
| Service | Per-gram karat prices | Update speed | Cheapest paid plan | Free plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| goldprice.dev | 8 grades, no key | Live on paid plans, 15 minutes late on Free | $19 a month, 100,000 requests | 5,000 requests, commercial use with a visible link |
| GoldAPI.io | 12 grades in every response | Pro and Business listed as real-time | $99 a month, unlimited REST | 300 requests |
| MetalpriceAPI | Carat endpoint, paid plans | 30 minutes on the cheapest plan | $7 a month, 1,000 requests | 100 requests, non-commercial |
| Metals-API | Carat endpoint, per carat unit | 10 minutes on Bronze | $39.99 a month, 5,000 calls | Limits not published, personal and test use only |
| Gold-API.com | None found | 30 seconds on every plan | $10 a month | Unlimited live prices, commercial use allowed |
| Metals.dev | None; unit=g parameter | 60 seconds on every plan | $1.79 a month, 2,000 requests | 100 requests |
Request volume for a repricing job
A job that refreshes the rate and rewrites product prices needs one request per refresh when you fetch a single rate.
| Refresh | Requests a month | Fits |
|---|---|---|
| Once a day | 30 | Every free plan |
| Hourly | 720 | goldprice.dev Free, MetalpriceAPI Essential, Metals-API Bronze, Metals.dev Copper |
| Every 15 minutes | 2,880 | goldprice.dev Free, Metals-API Bronze, Metals.dev Silver |
| Every 5 minutes | 8,640 | goldprice.dev Basic, GoldAPI.io Pro, Gold-API.com, Metals.dev Silver |
Fetch the rate on your server and store it. Do not call the API from browser code. Two services say so directly: GoldAPI.io tells you not to place keys in browser code, and Gold-API.com says never to put a key in frontend code. The keyless goldprice.dev carat endpoint returned no CORS headers on 2 November 2026, so call it from your server as well.
goldprice.dev: best for a scheduled repricing job
GET /v1/carat?currency=USD returns 24K, 22K, 21K, 20K, 18K, 16K, 14K and 10K per gram with no key, in 35 currencies. The response is cached for five seconds at the edge. The Free plan allows commercial use with a visible link to goldprice.dev near the prices. The $19 plan removes the link requirement, makes prices live and adds dealer quotes by country.
curl "https://api.goldprice.dev/v1/carat?currency=USD"{"currency":"USD","timestamp":"2026-11-02T11:14:02.007449Z","price_gram_24k":"125.38","price_gram_22k":"114.93","price_gram_21k":"109.70","price_gram_20k":"104.48","price_gram_18k":"94.03","price_gram_16k":"83.58","price_gram_14k":"73.14","price_gram_10k":"52.24"}Limits. Gold, silver and copper only. There is no store plugin, so the repricing script is yours to write. The service targets 99.9% uptime without a formal SLA or automatic credits.
GoldAPI.io: best for platinum and store guides
Every response carries melt prices for 12 karat grades per gram. It covers gold, silver, platinum and palladium. GoldAPI.io publishes about 20 integration guides, including Shopify, WooCommerce and WordPress, and a WordPress widget repository on GitHub. Its public status page showed 100% over 45 days.
Pro is $99 a month with unlimited REST requests, limited only by 5 requests per second per key. The terms allow commercial display inside your own application and say the data is indicative. They state the service has no SLA, and Enterprise does not add one.
MetalpriceAPI: best plugin and SDK coverage at a low price
Essential is $7 a month billed monthly for 1,000 requests with 30-minute updates, and the carat endpoint is a paid feature. There is an official WordPress plugin, a Postman collection, a Shopify link in the footer and eight MIT-licensed SDKs on GitHub. The status page showed 100% uptime over 90 days for the API and the EU API.
The free plan is limited to non-commercial use with attribution, so a live storefront needs a paid plan. Only Enterprise lists an SLA.
Metals-API: broadest catalog, strictest terms
Bronze is $39.99 a month for 5,000 calls and 10-minute updates. Metals-API lists a WordPress plugin and a Drupal module, and official SDKs for Python, Node.js, PHP and Java. The catalog has 726 symbols. Its carat endpoint returns values per carat unit, so you convert to grams yourself.
The terms bar the free plan from commercial or public use, and commercial rights end with the subscription. The standard terms refuse refunds for downtime. Overage is billed at $0.032435 per extra call unless you switch the soft limit off.
Gold-API.com: best no-key start
GET https://api.gold-api.com/price/XAU needs no key and updates every 30 seconds. Commercial use is permitted and attribution is optional. It prices gold, silver, platinum, palladium and copper in 19 currencies. It lists no SDK, plugin or status page, and the terms still describe the service as gold and silver only.
Metals.dev: cheapest paid plan
Every plan updates within 60 seconds, free included, and paid plans run from $1.79 for 2,000 requests. Per-gram output comes from unit=g. Metals.dev lists no store plugin or SDK. Its terms allow publishing rates commercially while you hold an active subscription and do not say whether Free counts.
Which to pick
- A new store testing the idea. goldprice.dev Free with a visible link, or Gold-API.com with no key.
- A WordPress or WooCommerce store that wants a plugin. MetalpriceAPI or Metals-API, on a paid plan.
- A store that also sells platinum or palladium. GoldAPI.io.
- A store that wants a fixed bill. GoldAPI.io Pro has unlimited requests, and Metals.dev stops access past its quota instead of billing overage.
Sources checked
Checked on 2 Nov 2026 against the pages below. Plans and prices change; open the page to confirm today's figure.