Datacircle

Best air quality API in 2026

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WeatherAPI.com, Open-Meteo and Weatherbit are the best air quality API providers in our benchmark. We benchmarked 7 providers and rank all 7 by score. For the three we score highest, we show each one's top scoring plan, each part of the plan's score and what 1,000 places cost. We rank 94 plans by price. OpenWeather's £370 monthly plan is the cheapest paid plan per 1,000 places: $0.00049.

Every air quality API provider we score, ranked

  1. WeatherAPI.com, $7 monthly: Overall score 72.7, Data score 49, $0.0023 per 1,000 places
  2. Open-Meteo, €99 monthly, API Professional: Overall score 71.0, Data score 67, $0.022 per 1,000 places
  3. Weatherbit, $495 monthly, Business: Overall score 69.6, Data score 49, $0.0083 per 1,000 places
  4. Botoi, $199 monthly: Overall score 64.3, Data score 49, $0.0066 per 1,000 places
  5. Visual Crossing, pay as you go: Overall score 57.8, Data score 61, $0.10 per 1,000 places
  6. ReefAPI, $450 quarterly: Overall score 41.3, Data score 50, $0.50 per 1,000 places
  7. Omkar Cloud, $148 monthly: Overall score 27.6, Data score 43, $1.97 per 1,000 places

  1. #1 WeatherAPI.com: Air quality API

    WeatherAPI.com, $7 monthly

    It returns 2 of the 6 key fields we check: Particles, Gases.

    Overall score
    72.7
    $ per 1,000
    $0.0023
    Price score
    81
    • $ per 1,000 places the provider has no air data for: the provider's pages don't say
    • Plans of this API we rank by price: 94
    • Plans cheaper per 1,000 places than this plan: 7
    Data score
    49
    Cost to get started score
    90
    • How you pay: monthly
    • Least to pay before your first result: $7
    Bundle score
    90
    • Also pays for, from the same budget: Forecast API · History API · Alerts API · Marine API · Search/Autocomplete API · IP Lookup API and 3 more
    Performance score
    100
    • This call's median time on 30 October 2026, minus the baseline: 0.073 s, counted as 0.1 s
    • WeatherAPI.com, the fastest provider we benchmarked that answers from a copy: under 0.1 s, counted as 0.1 s
    • On 30 October 2026, we sent this provider the same 20 places as every other provider in our benchmark.
    • This plan scored 0.4883 out of 1 on those 20 places. That gives this plan a Data score of 49 out of 100.

  2. #2 Open-Meteo: Air quality API

    Open-Meteo, €99 monthly, API Professional

    It returns all 6 key fields we check. 4 are in the plan's price: US AQI, European AQI, Particles, Gases. 2 cost extra: Pollen, UV index.

    Overall score
    71.0
    $ per 1,000
    $0.022
    Price score
    62
    • $ per 1,000 places the provider has no air data for: $0
    • Plans of this API we rank by price: 94
    • Plans cheaper per 1,000 places than this plan: 41
    Data score
    67
    Cost to get started score
    73
    • How you pay: monthly
    • Least to pay before your first result: $111.40
    Bundle score
    92
    • Also pays for, from the same budget: Forecast API · Marine API · Flood API · Elevation API · Geocoding API · Historical Weather API and 6 more
    Performance score
    100
    • This call's median time on 30 October 2026, minus the baseline: 0.002 s, counted as 0.1 s
    • Open-Meteo, the fastest live provider we benchmarked: under 0.1 s, counted as 0.1 s
    • On 30 October 2026, we sent this provider the same 20 places as every other provider in our benchmark.
    • This plan scored 0.6714 out of 1 on those 20 places. That gives this plan a Data score of 67 out of 100.

  3. #3 Weatherbit: Air quality API

    Weatherbit, $495 monthly, Business

    It returns 3 of the 6 key fields we check: US AQI, Particles, Gases.

    Overall score
    69.6
    $ per 1,000
    $0.0083
    Price score
    81
    • $ per 1,000 places the provider has no air data for: $0
    • Plans of this API we rank by price: 94
    • Plans cheaper per 1,000 places than this plan: 20
    Data score
    49
    Cost to get started score
    62
    • How you pay: monthly
    • Least to pay before your first result: $495
    Bundle score
    83
    • Also pays for, from the same budget: Current Weather API · Daily Forecast API (16 day) · Hourly Forecast API (240 hour) and 2 more
    Performance score
    100
    • This call's median time on 30 October 2026, minus the baseline: 0.037 s, counted as 0.1 s
    • Open-Meteo, the fastest live provider we benchmarked: under 0.1 s, counted as 0.1 s
    • On 30 October 2026, we sent this provider the same 20 places as every other provider in our benchmark.
    • This plan scored 0.4883 out of 1 on those 20 places. That gives this plan a Data score of 49 out of 100.

The Data score on air quality APIs

This score, out of 100, shows how much air quality data a provider's call returns for a place. We send each place's latitude and longitude to the provider's call. For each place, we count the parts the call returned, such as the index and the ozone level. We divide the number of parts the call returned by the number of parts we count for the place. A part counts for a place when a live call that offers the part returned the part for that place. We count any call that returned the part when fewer than two live calls offer the part and return data. We don't count a category or a health message worked out from an index. We count a pollutant's own index only when the call returns no level for that pollutant. We don't count the weather, pollen or mold that some calls also return. We don't check one provider's values against another's. Providers read different stations and models, so their values can differ for the same place. Then we average the scores of all places. Each place counts the same. When a provider didn't find a place, we count that place as 0. We compare a provider that ran on fewer places with the other providers on those same places. A provider can't score higher by running only on easy places. We lower the score when we test the call on fewer places than the benchmark has.

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