Every app that meets our API terms can sign up and use the Unsplash API for free, with a default rate limit of 50 requests/hour, referred to as a Demo status. This rate limit is perfect for:
- educational purposes, like learning to use an external API, adding dynamic elements to a demo UI, etc.
- small personal projects that aren't intended for the public
- testing out the API
If your application is going to be consumed by the public or used for internal purposes at a large company, you should apply for Production status. To be eligible, your application must:
- meet the API guidelines, including reporting image views via hotlinking and tracking download events
- meet our API terms
- include screenshots and accurate information, including a relevant title and description
If approved by our team, the rate limit will be increased to 5,000 requests/hour. If your application is especially popular, we can increase the rate limits further, but we do so on an as needed basis.
Note: we do not charge for API requests and we never will, regardless of if you're an indy developer or a large Fortune 500 enterprise. We apply these loose limits to API applications to prevent surges in usage from potentially affecting API reliability and performance.