specification: API Commons Plans
specificationVersion: '0.1'
schema: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/interface-research/main/schema/api-commons.yml#/$defs/Plans
provider: Ensembl
providerId: ensembl
created: '2026-06-13'
modified: '2026-06-13'
reconciled: true
tags:
  - Genomics
  - Bioinformatics
  - Genome Annotation
  - Life Sciences
  - Plans
description: >-
  The Ensembl REST API is provided free of charge by the European Bioinformatics
  Institute (EMBL-EBI) and Wellcome Sanger Institute as a public scientific
  resource. There are no commercial plans, subscription tiers, or paid access
  levels. All users access the same public endpoint at rest.ensembl.org with
  a shared rate limit of 55,000 requests per hour per IP address. For
  high-throughput or large-scale data needs, Ensembl recommends using the
  FTP download service or the Perl API against a local Ensembl database
  mirror rather than the REST API.
sources:
  - https://rest.ensembl.org
  - https://github.com/Ensembl/ensembl-rest/wiki/Rate-Limits
  - https://www.ensembl.org/info/docs/api/index.html
plans:
  - id: ensembl-public-free
    name: Public Free Access
    type: free
    description: >-
      Open, unauthenticated access to the Ensembl REST API for all users.
      No registration or API key is required. All 19 endpoint categories
      (Archive, Comparative Genomics, Cross References, Information, Linkage
      Disequilibrium, Lookup, Mapping, Ontologies, Overlap, Phenotype
      Annotations, Regulation, Sequence, Transcript Haplotypes, VEP,
      Variation, and Variation GA4GH) are available under this plan.
    entries:
      - label: Requests per Hour
        name: requests_per_hour
        type: rate-limit
        metric: requests
        limit: 55000
        timeFrame: hour
        unit: 1
        price: 0
        userMultiplied: false
      - label: Requests per Second (recommended)
        name: requests_per_second
        type: rate-limit
        metric: requests
        limit: 15
        timeFrame: second
        unit: 1
        price: 0
        userMultiplied: false
    elements:
      - name: Sequence Retrieval
      - name: Gene and Transcript Lookup
      - name: Variant Effect Prediction (VEP)
      - name: Comparative Genomics (Gene Trees, Homology, Alignments)
      - name: Cross References (External Database Mapping)
      - name: Coordinate Mapping Between Assemblies
      - name: Linkage Disequilibrium Calculations
      - name: Ontology and Taxonomy Queries
      - name: Overlap Feature Retrieval
      - name: Phenotype Annotations
      - name: Regulatory Feature Data
      - name: Transcript Haplotypes
      - name: GA4GH-Compliant Genomic Data Access
      - name: Batch POST Operations
      - name: Archive and Identifier Versioning
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: kin@apievangelist.com