shouldiuse.io

VERDICT

Should I use OpenAlex?

Open catalog of the global research system — API, data, and tooling. The pasted URL is its documentation/help center. - help.openalex.org

Worth it. You pasted the docs, not a product page — the product is OpenAlex, near-free scholarly metadata infrastructure with a $1/day free API budget. Buy if you are a technical research or data team; skip it if you need sales data, a no-code app, or vendor support.

Confidence

Medium. Based on 14 public sources; mostly first-party documentation, with no independent user reviews found.

Ratings

  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Feature depth
  • Support quality
  • Security posture

Pricing

$0

Free

ModelNot disclosed
Monthly feesNot disclosed
HardwareNot disclosed
Free tierYes
Pay-as-you-goUsage-based
Member$5,000/year

Best for

  • Bibliometrics and research analytics teams
  • Developers building scholarly search tools
  • Systematic review literature searches
  • Libraries modeling journal cancellation value

Not for

  • Sales teams hunting business contact lists
  • Non-technical users — it is an API, not an app
  • Teams needing SLAs or dedicated account support
  • Buyers wanting polished onboarding and hand-holding

Gotchas - check before you buy

medium

Search endpoint runs $1 per 1,000 calls; filtered list calls are 10x cheaper

medium

Free budget is only $1/day; heavy research workflows burn through it quickly

low

Legacy plans are retired; today's model is purely usage-based

low

Prepaid usage is self-serve; no account team to negotiate with

Pros and cons

Pros

  • Data itself is free; you only pay for API usage
  • $1 of free API usage every day
  • Filtered list calls cost $0.10 per 1,000
  • Extensive docs, tutorials, and how-to guides
  • Official CLI for bulk data downloads

Cons

  • Support is AI agent, community forum, and office hours only
  • Search calls cost 10x more than filtered list calls
  • No public security page found
  • Querying requires learning OQL, a custom query language
  • Developer-first API; no polished app for casual users

Sources & method

Analyzed 9/21/2026 - 8 sources - No known vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed.

official x6security x1news x1

Key stats

  • Value for money: 5/5

    Rating

  • $0

    Starting price

  • 8

    Sources

  • Analyzed

  • Value for money: 5/5. Data free; $1/day free API budget
  • Ease of use: 3/5. Developer-oriented; needs API and OQL comfort
  • Feature depth: 4/5. Works, authors, funders, OQL search, CLI, tutorials
  • Support quality: 2/5. Community, AI agent, office hours only
  • Security posture: 2/5. No public security page found
  • $1/day Free daily credit Free tier of API usage
  • $1 / 1,000 calls Search API price List+filter calls: $0.10 / 1,000
  • $5,000/year Member plan Includes $20/day API budget
  • ~45,000 Funders tracked Plus works, authors, sources, awards

Pricing

Free

$0

  • $1 of API usage free daily
  • OpenAlex data itself is free

Pay-as-you-go

Usage-based

  • Search: $1 per 1,000 calls
  • List+filter: $0.10 per 1,000 calls
  • Prepaid usage is self-serve

Member

$5,000/year

  • $20/day API budget included
  • Supports the nonprofit behind OpenAlex

Security

No known vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed.

What users say

No independent user reviews found; academic papers and a hospital library blog cite OpenAlex as a standard scholarly data source.

Full analysis

Based on 14 public sources; mostly first-party documentation, with no independent user reviews found.

Near-zero cost open research data: $1/day free API credit, pay-as-you-go. Ideal for research teams; wrong for sales contacts.

Methodology

Based on 14 public sources; mostly first-party documentation, with no independent user reviews found.

Sources

  1. Pricing Overview | OpenAlex Help Centerhelp.openalex.org
    official
  2. Example costs – Pricinghelp.openalex.org
    official
  3. Search – Queryinghelp.openalex.org
    official
  4. Support – Generalhelp.openalex.org
    official
  5. Security pagehelp.openalex.org
    security
  6. Systematic Reviews tutorialhelp.openalex.org
    official
  7. CLI – Productshelp.openalex.org
    official
  8. MSKCC Library blog on OpenAlexlibrary.mskcc.org
    news

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