A futures API prices contracts on commodities and stock indexes such as crude oil or the E-mini S&P, not the US stocks and options Market Data sells. We do not sell futures data at all, so we ranked 9 futures API and futures data API providers that do, and Databento ranks first, on nanosecond-timestamped feeds across eight exchanges.
Futures pricing is marked Coming Soon in our own site navigation, the same label crypto and forex carry. In March 2026 a prospect asked when futures data would arrive via Excel, adding, “this is the only info I need.” Our answer, in full: “We don’t have futures ready yet. It won’t be until next year at least.” We still don’t sell it. If you also need US stocks or options, see our stock API or options API; for futures contracts, one of the 9 below is the right search.
How did we rank the futures APIs?
Each provider was scored from 0 to 10 on five criteria. Futures coverage and real-time delivery each count double. History and cost each count one and a half, and developer experience counts once. Every figure is checked against the provider’s own pricing page, current on 26 September 2026.
The weighting favors a developer who wants one contract streamed live over a fund buying tick data across a dozen exchanges. For a quant desk pricing spreads across CME and Eurex, Databento’s eight exchanges matter more than the scores below show.
Which futures api ranks best?
| Rank | Provider | Score | Best for | Paid plans from |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Databento | 7.8 | Nanosecond real-time futures across 7+ exchanges | $199/mo |
| 2 | Massive | 7.6 | A transparent futures ladder from free to real-time | $23.20/mo |
| 3 | Barchart | 6.9 | Futures, commodities and agricultural depth | $8.25/mo |
| 4 | Unusual Whales | 4.6 | Live CME futures tape via WebSocket | $42/mo |
| 5 | Yahoo Finance | 3.1 | Free, delayed futures quotes | $9.95/mo |
| 6 | Alpha Vantage | 2.8 | Commodity price series, not futures contracts | $41.58/mo |
| 7 | Financial Modeling Prep | 2.3 | Commodity price data, not futures contracts | $22/mo |
| 8 | Cboe DataShop | 1.9 | Historical CFE/VIX futures trade files | $95/mo |
| 8 | Nasdaq Data Link | 1.9 | Daily aggregate futures positioning estimates | $9/mo |
The five highest-ranked providers, side by side:
| Feature | Databento | Massive | Barchart | Unusual Whales | Yahoo Finance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Forex | Basic, contradictory claims 1 | Good, ~1,200 pairs (Currencies) 2 | Basic, forward curves 3 | Basic, Advanced tier only | Basic, quote pages only |
| Crypto | No, roadmap only 4 | Good, ~600 pairs (Currencies) | Basic, spot only 3 | Good | Basic, quote pages only |
| Futures | Excellent, CME/ICE/Eurex/EEX 5 | Good, real-time on Advanced ($199) 6 | Excellent, deepest here 7 | Good, CME, Advanced tier | Basic, 10-30m delayed 8 |
| WebSocket streaming | Yes, proprietary binary protocol 1 | Yes 9 | Yes 10 | Yes, 28+ channels 11 | Unconfirmed |
| Official SDKs | Python, Rust, C++ 12 | Python, JS/TS, Go, Java/Kotlin 13 | Python, JS, Java, PHP, Go 14 | None official 15 | None official (yfinance, unofficial) 16 |
| Free tier | No; $125 signup credit, 6mo 5 | 5 calls/min, 2yr history, EOD only 17 | Free account, limited screeners 18 | Yes, 2-day delayed flow 19 | Yes, real-time US quotes, no card 20 |
| Cheapest paid plan | $199/mo (CME Standard) 5 | $23.20/mo (Stocks Starter, annual) 17 | $8.25/mo (Plus, annual) 18 | $42/mo (Retail Basic, annual) 19 | $9.95/mo (Bronze) 20 |
Sources for this table, checked 2026-09-26
- databento.com/
- massive.com/currencies
- barchart.com/ondemand/api
- databento.com/blog/series-b
- databento.com/pricing
- massive.com/futures
- barchart.com/solutions/software/excel-add-in
- help.yahoo.com/kb/exchanges-data-providers-yahoo-finance-sln2310.html
- massive.com/pricing?product=options
- barchart.com/ondemand
- unusualwhales.com/public-api
- github.com/databento
- github.com/massive-com
- github.com/barchart
- github.com/search?q=unusualwhales
- github.com/ranaroussi/yfinance
- massive.com/pricing
- barchart.com/get-barchart-premier
- unusualwhales.com/pricing
- help.yahoo.com/kb/yahoo-finance-plus/select-plans-sln36623.html
Databento
7.8/10 Real-time, nanosecond-timestamped futures across CME, CBOT, NYMEX, COMEX, ICE, Eurex, EEX and CFE, but the cheapest flat plan is $199/month with no free tier.
- Futures coverage ×2
- 9/10
- Real-time ×2
- 10/10
- History ×1.5
- 9/10
- Cost ×1.5
- 2/10
- Developer experience ×1
- 8/10
Strengths
- Real-time futures confirmed across CME, CBOT, NYMEX, COMEX, ICE, Eurex, EEX and CFE
- 16+ years of history for some CME datasets
- Official Python, Rust and C++ SDKs, own low-latency streaming protocol
Weaknesses
- No free tier; cheapest flat futures plan (CME Standard) is $199/month
- No Google Sheets, Excel, or charting product
Databento streams real-time, nanosecond-timestamped futures across CME, CBOT, NYMEX, COMEX, ICE, Eurex, EEX and CFE, more exchanges than any other provider we scored. Its cheapest flat plan is $199 a month, and there is no free tier at all.
Massive
7.6/10 A clear, published futures ladder from a free 2-year EOD tier up to real-time with 7+ years of history at $199/month, across CME, CBOT, NYMEX and COMEX.
- Futures coverage ×2
- 7/10
- Real-time ×2
- 9/10
- History ×1.5
- 7/10
- Cost ×1.5
- 6/10
- Developer experience ×1
- 9/10
Strengths
- Free Basic tier includes 2 years of EOD futures data across CME, CBOT, NYMEX and COMEX
- Real-time futures with 7+ years of history on the $199/mo Futures Advanced plan
- 4 official SDKs (Python, JS/TS, Go, Java/Kotlin) plus WebSocket streaming
Weaknesses
- Trustpilot 2.3/5 (6 reviews, all one-star)
- Real-time futures gated to the $199/mo Advanced tier
Massive publishes a clear futures ladder: a free two-year end-of-day tier, a $29-a-month tier ten minutes delayed, and real-time with 7+ years of history at $199 a month across CME, CBOT, NYMEX and COMEX. It’s the only provider here that prices every step from free to real-time in public.
Barchart
6.9/10 The deepest futures/commodities/agriculture coverage here, but the OnDemand API has no published self-serve price at all.
- Futures coverage ×2
- 10/10
- Real-time ×2
- 8/10
- History ×1.5
- 6/10
- Cost ×1.5
- 2/10
- Developer experience ×1
- 7/10
Strengths
- getFuturesByExchange supports real-time, delayed, or EOD pricing by package
- Deepest and most distinctive futures/commodities/ag data on this list, including grain bids, USDA prices, and yield forecasts
- 5 official SDK languages (Python, JS, Java, PHP, Go) and WebSocket/Barchart Stream delivery
Weaknesses
- No published self-serve API pricing anywhere; OnDemand is sales-assisted only
- Python and Java SDK clients have not been updated since 2023 and 2019 respectively
Barchart’s futures and agriculture endpoints are the deepest we scored, covering grain bids, USDA prices and fuel data alongside contract quotes. Its OnDemand API has no published self-serve price; every quote goes through a sales call.
Unusual Whales
4.6/10 CME futures with live WebSocket tape streaming is a named API Advanced feature, but that tier costs $375/month and history depth is unpublished.
- Futures coverage ×2
- 5/10
- Real-time ×2
- 8/10
- History ×1.5
- 1/10
- Cost ×1.5
- 3/10
- Developer experience ×1
- 5/10
Strengths
- CME futures data with live WebSocket tape streaming named as an API Advanced feature
- API docs index lists a dedicated Futures category with 6 endpoints
- WebSocket Channels category with 28+ channels, included on both API tiers
Weaknesses
- Real-time CME futures access requires the $375/mo API Advanced tier
- No official SDK/client library — only small, unofficial community scripts
- No futures history depth published
Unusual Whales streams CME futures with a live websocket tape as a named feature of its API Advanced tier, $375 a month with no annual discount published. History depth for that feed isn’t published either.
Yahoo Finance
3.1/10 Free quotes cover major commodity and index futures, but every one is delayed 10-30 minutes with no real-time tier at any price.
- Futures coverage ×2
- 4/10
- Real-time ×2
- 0/10
- History ×1.5
- 0/10
- Cost ×1.5
- 10/10
- Developer experience ×1
- 2/10
Strengths
- Free access, no signup required
- Broad quote-page coverage of major commodity and index futures
Weaknesses
- No official API — shut down in 2017, now reached only through unofficial scraping libraries (yfinance, yahooquery)
- CME/NYMEX commodity futures are delayed 20-30 minutes; no real-time futures tier found at any price
Yahoo Finance’s free quote pages cover major commodity and index futures, delayed 10 to 30 minutes, with no real-time tier at any price and no official API behind them.
Alpha Vantage, Financial Modeling Prep, Cboe DataShop and Nasdaq Data Link round out the nine. Alpha Vantage and FMP both sell commodity price series such as crude oil and natural gas rather than actual futures contracts; Cboe DataShop covers only CFE futures, mainly VIX, as historical trade files back to March 2018; and Nasdaq Data Link’s one futures product is a daily aggregate positioning estimate, not a price or quote database at all.
Is there a free futures api?
Only for delayed quotes. Massive’s Basic tier gives two years of end-of-day futures history free, and Yahoo Finance’s quote pages are free but delayed and unofficial. Neither is real-time.
Which futures api is cheapest for real-time data?
Massive and Databento both land at $199 a month for real-time futures. Massive covers four exchanges to Databento’s eight, and Databento adds nanosecond timestamps Massive doesn’t publish.
How many commercial requests did we refer to a partner in September 2026?
We refer you to our partner Intrinio. We made that change in February 2025, after IEX ended free redistribution of real-time stock prices for business use, because exchange compliance for business customers was more than our small team could handle.
The volume is steady: from 1 to 25 September 2026 we passed on 22 commercial enquiries. Each one described a product that would show prices, or something built from them, to other people.
What did an adjusted historical price cost one of our customers?
Usually because one source adjusts past prices for later splits and corporate actions and the other does not. Adjusted history changes whenever a new corporate action lands, so a value you fetched last month can come back different today.
That default cost us. In April 2026 an institution valuing donated stock told us our highs and lows disagreed with other quote sites, and it withheld a subscription payment for five weeks while we investigated. A donation is valued at the price that traded that day, so it needed unadjusted candles: two query parameters removed all five discrepancies it reported. The same review found a real bug that dropped the third decimal from some prices, and we fixed it.
Why doesn’t Market Data sell futures data, and where should you go instead?
Because we haven’t built it, and we said so plainly when a prospect asked in March 2026.
For US stocks and options instead, the ranking of financial data providers compares every company above across every asset class, and our own Excel stock data ranking covers the spreadsheet workflow that prospect actually wanted, since we still have no Excel add-in for futures or anything else.