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Is the YouTube API free? Quota limits (2026)

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Yes, the YouTube Data API is free to use. What limits you is quota, and the rules changed in June 2026: search and video upload moved onto allowances of their own, and every other method kept the shared one.

The default allowance

10,000
units a day, shared by every method except search
100
search calls a day, in their own bucket
1
unit for most read calls
$0
to use the official API
Most reads cost a unit
Videos, channels, playlist items, comment threads and comments are one unit each, so the shared allowance is roughly ten thousand reads.
Search is counted separately
A hundred search calls a day at one unit each. When they are spent, search stops while reads carry on.
Every request counts
Even a request that fails costs at least one unit, and each further page of results is another call.
The day resets at midnight Pacific
Not at midnight where you are, which is how a job that ran fine yesterday stops mid-afternoon.

When it is not enough

You can ask for more. The route is a quota extension request, and a compliance audit of your project comes before any allowance above the default. It is a review against a described use case rather than a switch you flip, so file it before the prototype becomes the product. Checked against Google's documentation on 21 September 2026.

Who outgrows the free tier

Monitoring channels you already know
Nobody. A few thousand reads a day is well inside the allowance.
Mining comments at volume
Big videos paginate, and every page is a call. The daily allowance is the ceiling, not the price.
Discovery and search
A hundred searches a day is a prototype. Anything that finds channels by topic runs out of them first.

Where we sit

$0.50
per 1,000 results, every endpoint
13
public YouTube endpoints
0
quota applications to file

If your work fits inside the free allowance, Google's API is cheaper than us and always will be, because it is free. We are the answer when search depth or comment volume puts you outside it: one flat rate, no subscription, and a run that comes back empty costs nothing.

Questions people ask

Is the YouTube Data API free?
Yes. It is free to use within a default allowance of ten thousand units a day for most methods, plus a hundred search calls a day in a bucket of their own.
How many YouTube searches can I make per day?
A hundred on the default allowance. Search has its own daily bucket, each call costs one unit, and the count resets at midnight Pacific Time. More needs a quota extension request.
What changed in the YouTube API quota in 2026?
From 1 June 2026 Google began moving individual methods onto their own daily buckets, starting with search and video upload. Every other method stays on the shared ten thousand units.
Does a failed YouTube API request use quota?
Yes. Every request, including an invalid one, costs at least one unit.
What is the cheapest YouTube API past the free quota?
On published per-result rates, $0.50 per thousand results here, billed on rows delivered, with no subscription, no minimum, and no charge for a run that returns nothing.

Try it on your own targets

The only comparison that settles anything is your own. A new account gets 1,000 credits, needs no card, and runs on the same endpoints and rate as a paying one.

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