specification: API Commons Plans
specificationVersion: '0.1'
schema: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/interface-research/main/schema/api-commons.yml#/$defs/Plans
provider: Stack Exchange
providerId: stackexchange
created: '2026-05-29'
modified: '2026-05-29'
reconciled: false
tags:
  - Q And A
  - Developer Community
  - Knowledge API
  - Stack Overflow
  - Free Tier
description: >-
  The public Stack Exchange API v2.3 is free to use for both commercial and
  non-commercial applications under the Stack Exchange API Terms of Use.
  Anonymous (no-key) callers get 300 requests per IP per day; registering a
  free app on stackapps.com and sending the resulting `key` parameter raises
  the daily quota to 10,000 requests per IP. Stack Overflow for Teams is a
  separate paid product with seat-based and tiered pricing for private
  workspaces; the Stack Overflow MCP beta server is currently free to use up
  to 100 calls per user per day. Always consult the provider's pricing pages
  for current numbers — values below are documented behavior captured from
  api.stackexchange.com but not freshly reconciled against the live page.
sources:
  - https://api.stackexchange.com/docs
  - https://api.stackexchange.com/docs/throttle
  - https://stackapps.com/apps/oauth/register
  - https://stackoverflow.co/teams/pricing/
  - https://github.com/StackExchange/Stack-MCP
plans:
  - id: stackexchange-public-api-free
    name: Public API (Free)
    type: freemium
    description: >-
      Free public access to the Stack Exchange API v2.3 across all 180+ Q&A
      sites. No key required; commercial use permitted under the API Terms of
      Use.
    entries:
      - label: API requests without key
        name: requests_no_key
        type: quota
        metric: request
        limit: 300
        timeFrame: day
        geo: global
        unit: 1
        price: '$0'
        userMultiplied: false
      - label: API requests with registered key
        name: requests_with_key
        type: quota
        metric: request
        limit: 10000
        timeFrame: day
        geo: global
        unit: 1
        price: '$0'
        userMultiplied: false
    elements:
      - name: Read access to questions, answers, comments, users, tags, badges, sites
      - name: OAuth 2.0 for write operations
      - name: Custom response filters
      - name: Vectorized id fetch (up to 100 ids per call)
      - name: Per-site or network-wide queries via the site parameter
  - id: stackexchange-mcp-beta
    name: Stack Overflow MCP (Beta)
    type: freemium
    description: >-
      Official Stack Overflow MCP server hosted by Stack Exchange. Currently
      in beta with a per-user daily cap; free during the beta period.
    entries:
      - label: MCP calls per user
        name: mcp_calls
        type: quota
        metric: request
        limit: 100
        timeFrame: day
        geo: global
        unit: 1
        price: '$0'
        userMultiplied: true
    elements:
      - name: Search Stack Overflow questions and answers
      - name: Retrieve full conversation threads
      - name: Ground LLM responses in community-verified content
      - name: OAuth onboarding with Stack Overflow account
  - id: stackexchange-teams
    name: Stack Overflow for Teams
    type: tiered
    description: >-
      Paid SaaS product offering private Stack Overflow instances for
      organizations. Pricing is seat- and tier-based (Basic, Business,
      Enterprise) with custom Enterprise contracts. See
      https://stackoverflow.co/teams/pricing/ for current per-seat numbers.
    entries:
      - label: Per-seat subscription
        name: teams_seat
        type: subscription
        metric: seat
        limit: -1
        timeFrame: month
        geo: global
        unit: 1
        price: 'see https://stackoverflow.co/teams/pricing/'
        userMultiplied: true
    elements:
      - name: Private Q&A workspace
        description: Team-only questions, answers, articles, and collections.
      - name: Stack Overflow for Teams API v3
        description: REST API for programmatic CRUD over Teams content.
      - name: TypeScript SDK
        description: Official @stackoverflow/teams-sdk for Node/browser integrations.
      - name: Terraform Provider
        description: Manage Teams resources as code via terraform-provider-stackoverflow.
      - name: Backstage Plugin
        description: Surface Teams content inside Backstage developer portals.
      - name: LangChain Integration
        description: Retrieval over Teams content for LLM pipelines.