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Visual Crossing pricing and alternatives: air quality API

Visual Crossing's sitellms.txtBest air quality API in 2026: pricing compared

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67% complete: 4 of the 6 key fields we checkSee the 6 fields
$0.00per 1,000 placesWe rank 94 plans by price. OpenWeather's £370 monthly plan is the cheapest paid plan per 1,000 places: $0.00049.WeatherAPI.com, Open-Meteo and Weatherbit are the best air quality API providers in our benchmark.
Plan: Free one of Visual Crossing's 4 plans
Call: GET /VisualCrossingWebServices/rest/services/timeline/{location} Visual Crossing's only call for this API
API: Air quality API one of Visual Crossing's 3 APIs

About this item

  • Freshness. We don't know how fresh this plan's data is.
  • 4 of the 6 key fields we check. US AQI, European AQI, Particles, Gases.
  • Nothing to pay. You get 30,000 results a month, enough for 30,000 calls.
  • One call. You send location to GET /VisualCrossingWebServices/rest/services/timeline/{location}. You set elements to "datetime,pm1,pm2p5,pm10,o3,no2,so2,co,aqius,aqieur". The call returns the air quality now at each place you send.
  • Anyone can get it. Keep data: no limit. Use data: with conditions.

Visual Crossing: air quality API alternatives

The table starts with Visual Crossing's cheapest paid plan. Next come plans from other providers with the price per 1,000 places closest to Visual Crossing's.

Visual Crossing, pay as you goWorld Weather Online, $1 monthly, Pro, GET /premium/v1/weather.ashxOpen-Meteo, €29 monthly, API Standard, GET /v1/air-quality, Air quality, fullAPI Ninjas, $1,188 yearlyForeca, €1,089 yearly, Stratus, GET /api/v1/air-quality/forecast/daily/{location}
$ per 1,000 places$0.10$0.067$0.098$0.099$0.102
Completeness67%33%100%33%33%
Billingpay as you gomonthlymonthlyyearlyyearly
Payat a threshold$1€29$1,188€1,089
Enough foras many as you pay for500 calls a dayabout 333,333 calls a month1,000,000 calls a month1,000,000 calls a month
Freshnessunknownunknownliveunknownunknown
Who can get itanyoneanyone aged 16 or overanyoneanyone 18 or overanyone

Every air quality API provider we score, ranked

Sources

From each provider's own pricing page and docs, and from what providers tell us. We read this row from these pages on 2026-10-30.

  1. visualcrossing.com/air-quality-api
  2. visualcrossing.com/resources/documentation/weather-api/air-quality-elements-in-the-weather-api/
  3. visualcrossing.com/resources/documentation/weather-api/timeline-weather-api/
  4. visualcrossing.com/resources/documentation/weather-api/what-is-the-querycost-parameter
  5. visualcrossing.com/resources/documentation/weather-data/understanding-and-optimizing-the-visual-crossing-weather-pay-as-you-go-plan
  6. visualcrossing.com/weather-api
  7. visualcrossing.com/weather-data-pricing/
  8. visualcrossing.com/weather-service-terms

Product details

The key fields this plan's answer can hold, then each filled column in its row on the sheet.

  • US AQI
  • European AQI
  • Particles
  • Gases
  • Pollen, not in the answer
  • UV index, not in the answer
Price
$ per 1,000 places$0.00
Percall
Billingfree
Charges
Also pays forfrom the same budget: Timeline Weather API date range queries
Not found
$ per 1,000$0.00
In their words
Their pitchVisual Crossing’s Timeline Weather API provides high-quality air quality data for teams who need to track localized air pollution levels.
Data
Keep datano limit
Use data"10. DATA STORAGE. The data produced by the Service Components may be stored in any database or other storage and retrieval system." "13. RESALE OR COMPETING WEATHER DATA SERVICES. You may not use the Service Components or the data they produce to create, operate, or offer a weather data API, bulk weather dataset, weather data marketplace, or similar service that competes with Visual Crossing." "11. DATA SHARING. [...] Raw Weather Data may never be shared or distributed publicly for download and may only be shown to the general public for viewing purposes where the data is not readily exportable, downloadable, or available through bulk export, API access, structured download, automated retrieval, or similar retrieval functionality." Attribution: "Attribution for all Visual Crossing Weather Data usage is required at the Pay-as-you-go and Pro license level." (pricing page).
Plan
Pay$0
You get30,000 results a month
Enough for30,000 calls a month
Rate limit
Per day1,000
Concurrent1
Batch5
Speed
Median0.07 s
The call
You sendlocation, elements "datetime,pm1,pm2p5,pm10,o3,no2,so2,co,aqius,aqieur". Optional: include, unitGroup, lang, options, iconSet, timezone, maxDistance, maxStations, elevationDifference, locationNames, forecastDataset
MethodGET
Path/VisualCrossingWebServices/rest/services/timeline/{location}
About the plan
PlanFree
Who can get itanyone
The 19 fields the plan's answer can hold

latitude, longitude, resolved address, address, time zone, UTC offset, query cost, elevation, day, hour, US AQI, European AQI, PM1, PM2.5, PM10, ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide

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