Sports data API
Sportmonks
REST API for football with live scores, fixtures, lineups, xG, predictions and odds across 2,200+ leagues, plus separate cricket and Formula 1 APIs.
Facts verified against the provider's site on
Tone of public discussions, liked vs criticised points, reliability complaints; based on 25+ public discussions.
Computed from public data only; uptime and latency are not measured yet. Enterprise feeds that sell by contract score lower on transparency by design. How the score works
- Starting price
- €29/mo
- Free access
- Free tier
- Sports
- 3 (Football (soccer), Cricket…)
- Live data
- Yes
- Delivery
- Polling only (REST)
- Discussions
- 40 threads
- GitHub adoption
- 207 repos
Best for
Football apps and betting models that need many leagues, lineups, xG and stats on a self-serve monthly plan with a free tier and trial.
Not ideal for
Projects that need US sports or the full league list on a small budget; leagues per plan are capped and history is on Enterprise only.
Limitations to check
- − Leagues per plan are capped (5 Starter, 30 Growth, 120 Pro)
- − xG, predictions and premium odds are priced as add-ons
- − Historical data is included only on Enterprise
- − Reselling data needs approval; logos and photos are not licensed
Written from the provider's own pages (source).
Last checked 2026-11-03
Sportmonks at a glance
- What is Sportmonks best for?
- Football apps and betting models that need many leagues, lineups, xG and stats on a self-serve monthly plan with a free tier and trial. Not ideal for: Projects that need US sports or the full league list on a small budget; leagues per plan are capped and history is on Enterprise only.
- How much does Sportmonks cost?
- The cheapest public paid plan of Sportmonks is €29/mo. Listed plans: Starter €29/mo; Growth €99/mo; Pro €249/mo.
- Does Sportmonks have a free tier?
- Yes. Sportmonks lists a free plan called "Free".
- What does Sportmonks cover?
- Sportmonks is a sports data api. Its sports: Football (soccer), Cricket, Formula 1; data: Fixtures, Historical data, Lineups, News, Odds, Player stats, Predictions, Live scores and 4 more. Live / in-play data is offered.
- Does Sportmonks have a WebSocket or streaming API?
- No streaming is listed. Sportmonks delivers data by REST, so you poll for updates.
- Can I use Sportmonks data commercially or for betting?
- According to the public terms of Sportmonks — commercial use: allowed; redistribution: licence required; storing data: allowed.
- What do developers say about Sportmonks?
- Widely used paid football data API for side projects, dashboards and betting models, with many wrappers and GitHub repos. Users like the stats depth and reasonable price versus Opta or Sportradar, but call it pricey for hobby use, say premium odds lack player props, and report unreliable live data and sales or custom-plan frustrations.
- What are the alternatives to Sportmonks?
- Close alternatives in the SportDex catalog: StatPal, SportsDataIO, iSports API, Highlightly, API-Sports / API-Football.
Commercial decision
Pricing & plan limits
| Plan | Price | Requests | What's included |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | — | Free plan to start, no card; limits not stated in crawled pagessource |
| Starter | €29/mo | 2,000 / hour | 5 leagues of your choice; EUR 24/mo billed yearly; 14-day trial; limit per entity per hoursource |
| Growth | €99/mo | 2,500 / hour | 30 leagues; EUR 79/mo billed yearly; 14-day trialsource |
| Pro | €249/mo | 3,000 / hour | 120 leagues; EUR 199/mo billed yearly; 14-day trialsource |
| Enterprise | Contact sales | 5,000 / hour | All 2,300+ leagues, historical data, custom agreementssource |
Prices are for the Football API; cricket and F1 have own pricing pages (not read). Add-ons (xG, predictions, premium odds) priced separately. Free plan limits not confirmed.
Before choosing a paid plan, confirm
• What counts as one request (per call, per market, per region?)
• What happens when you exceed the quota: blocked or billed
• Whether live and historical data are on your plan
• Whether your use (public app, betting, resale) is licensed
The critical question
Data coverage
- Sports
- Football (soccer)CricketFormula 1
- Data types
- FixturesHistorical dataLineupsNewsOddsPlayer statsPredictionsLive scoresStandingsTeam statsWidgetsxG
- Key competitions
- Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A, Ligue 1source
- Competitions
- 2200
- Live / in-play
- Yes
- Women's competitions
- Not disclosed
- Betting markets
- Not disclosed
- Bookmaker regions
- Not disclosed
- Bookmakers
- Not disclosed
- History depth
- Included on Enterprise plan
- Update frequency
- Not disclosed
- Name languages
- Not disclosed
- ID mapping
- Not disclosed
Coverage often depends on the plan; confirm the exact league and season on your plan.
Before you build
Usage rights & access
- Commercial use
- Allowedsource
- Betting products
- Not disclosed
- Redistribution
- Licence required
- Storing data
- Allowed
- Attribution
- Not disclosed
- Logos & photos
- Not included
- Who can buy
- Individuals, Companiessource
- Verification (KYC)
- Not disclosed
- Not available in
- Not disclosed
- Only available in
- Not disclosed
Self-serve signup with free tier; VAT-registered businesses can enter a VAT number.
Developer-ready evaluation
Integration & documentation
- Protocols
- REST
- Formats
- JSON
- Authentication
- api key
- SDKs
- Not disclosed
- OpenAPI spec
- Not disclosed
- Claimed latency
- Not disclosed
- Status page
- Not disclosed
- Sandbox / test keys
- Not disclosed
- Support
- SLA uptime
- Not disclosed
Preview brief
# Integration brief: Sportmonks Goal: build a feature on Sportmonks data. Use only the official documentation below as the source of truth. ## Known facts (from SportDex, verify before relying on them) - Website: https://www.sportmonks.com - Docs: https://docs.sportmonks.com/v3 - Sports: Football (soccer), Cricket, Formula 1 - Data: Fixtures, Historical data, Lineups, News, Odds, Player stats, Predictions, Live scores, Standings, Team stats, Widgets, xG - Protocols: REST; formats: json - Auth: api_key - Free plan: Free - Cheapest paid plan: €29/mo - Note: Prices are for the Football API; cricket and F1 have own pricing pages (not read). Add-ons (xG, predictions, premium odds) priced separately. Free plan limits not confirmed. ## Verify before writing code - live update frequency - exact endpoint paths, parameters and response fields (read the official docs, do not guess) ## Implementation rules - Keep the API key on the server (environment variable, backend route or edge function); never ship it to the browser. - Cache responses and respect rate limits; count how many requests each screen triggers. - Handle errors explicitly: invalid key, quota exceeded (429), missing fields, empty fixtures, timeouts. - Start with one demo request and log the raw response before building UI on assumed field names.
Data quality signals
Data source & company
- Official partners
- Not disclosed
- How data is collected
- Not disclosed
- Certifications
- Not disclosed
- Payment methods
- Not disclosed
- Minimum contract
- none, month to month
- Country
- Not disclosed
- Founded
- Not disclosed
Reddit · Hacker News · Stack Overflow · GitHub · YouTube
What developers say
Widely used paid football data API for side projects, dashboards and betting models, with many wrappers and GitHub repos. Users like the stats depth and reasonable price versus Opta or Sportradar, but call it pricey for hobby use, say premium odds lack player props, and report unreliable live data and sales or custom-plan frustrations.
Praised for
- Solid football stats and many leagues
- Cheaper than Opta or Sportradar
- Many client wrappers and example repos
- Free tier for trying it out
Complaints
- Pricey for side projects
- Live data felt unreliable or slow
- Premium odds add-on lacks player props
- Complaints about custom-plan sales practices
Our summary of public discussions, not a rating. Vendor posts are not counted as user opinion.
Discussions
- I built a fully automated analytics product for Danish Superliga — with NO recurring costr/sportsanalytics · 2026-05
- Best free/cheap football API for 250+ leagues?r/sportsanalytics · 2026-10
- Another Euro 2020 group analyzed and predicted. Again, using R to scrape fbref.com, pull data via API from Sportmonks, and Monte Carlo simulations for analysis and predictions!r/sportsanalytics · 2021-06
- Football (Soccer) data APIr/sportsanalytics · 2026-04
- Let's compile a list of API vendorsr/algobetting · 2020-05
- Football api for analytic dashboardr/sportsanalytics · 2026-05
- How do you balance cost vs features in choosing a sports API?r/webdev · 2024-01
- Real-time score fetchingr/algobetting · 2025-03
- Where to find Affordable and Detailed data sources for building sport betting model? Anyone interested in sharing costs for txodds, sportmonks, betfair historical?r/algobetting · 2024-11
- Looking for a free (or very cheap) football data API – running into issues with API-Footballr/sportsanalytics · 2026-01
- Cheap/reliable soccer API for live odds + lineupsr/algobetting · 2026-08
- People who work with betting data — what would you want from an odds feed?r/algobetting · 2026-03
Open-source projects using it
Videos
- New API3 features - Statistics endpoints, includes & more.Sportmonks · 2023-06
- What's new in API 3.0? | SportmonksSportmonks · 2023-01
- Getting started with Sportmonks' API 3.0Sportmonks · 2023-01
- An introduction to the number 1 data providers: SportmonksSportmonks · 2021-12
- Football Livescore WidgetSportmonks · 2021-11
- Футбольные данные: сбор и анализ футбольных данных с помощью SportMonks Data APIciao.football · 2021-04
Shortlist next steps
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Evidence & transparency
Official sources
- https://www.sportmonks.com
- https://docs.sportmonks.com/v3
- https://www.sportmonks.com/football-api/plans-pricing/
- https://www.sportmonks.com/football-api/coverage/
Facts were extracted from the provider's own pages on 2026-11-03. Empty fields mean the provider does not say, not that the feature is missing. How we know