Is the Apple Music API free? Prices, limits and access (2026)

November 8, 2026

Short answer

Not quite. The Apple Music API has no per-call fee, but every request needs a developer token signed with a MusicKit key, and that requires membership in the Apple Developer Program at $99 a year. The free route is the iTunes Search API, which needs no key but is limited to about 20 calls a minute and to promoting store content.

Apple has three ways into its music catalog, and only one is free with no account. Which one you need depends on whether you want live lookups, a bulk catalog or a quick search box. None of them gives public play counts.

Apple's music data options

Option	Access	Price	Limits	Data
Apple Music API	Apple Developer Program member, MusicKit key	$99 a year membership	Not published; 429 when exceeded	Catalog albums, songs, artists, playlists, music videos, stations, charts; a user's library with their permission
Apple Music Feed	Developer token; bulk exports	Membership	Full refresh every 24 hours	Albums, songs, artists and popularity charts as Parquet files
iTunes Search API	No key	Free	About 20 calls a minute	Search and lookup across music, podcasts, apps, books and more

The membership price is on Apple's developer program page.

The Apple Music API

Apple's token guide says every request needs a signed developer token, as a member of the Apple Developer Program. The token is a JWT signed with ES256 using your MusicKit private key, with your 10-character Team ID as issuer and an expiry no more than 6 months out. For web clients Apple recommends an origin claim so the token works only from your domain.

Apple does not publish a request limit. It says the API limits requests per developer token over a period, returns 429 when you go over, and recovers once you slow down.

What a song returns: Apple's song attributes include name, artistName, albumName, isrc, durationInMillis, genreNames, releaseDate, previews, hasLyrics and contentRating. There is no play count field. If you need streams, Apple's public API cannot give them.

Apple Music Feed

The feed is the bulk version: catalog metadata and popularity charts as Parquet exports, refreshed every 24 hours. Read the use rule before you plan on it. Apple says the feed may be used only to publicly promote Apple Music content in your app, and using it to power internal tools, share data with third parties, or analyze music and artist information for other reasons is "strictly prohibited".

The iTunes Search API

This one is free and needs nothing but a URL. Apple's Search API page documents https://itunes.apple.com/search with a term, and a limit from 1 to 200 (default 50).

curl "https://itunes.apple.com/search?term=jack+johnson&entity=song&limit=5"

Two limits matter. Apple says the API is limited to approximately 20 calls a minute and suggests its Enterprise Partner Feed for heavier use, and it allows previews, album art and icons only to promote store content, near a store badge.

Worked example: matching 10,000 ISRCs

You have 10,000 tracks and want each one's Apple catalog link. At 20 calls a minute, the iTunes Search API takes about 500 minutes, a bit over 8 hours, and its promotional-use rule may not fit an analytics product. The Apple Music API is faster, but needs the $99 membership and a token pipeline.

Which one fits you

An app that plays music or builds playlists for Apple Music subscribers: the Apple Music API with MusicKit.
A discovery feature that promotes Apple Music: Apple Music Feed.
A small search box or a one-off lookup: the free iTunes Search API.
Catalog data for research or cross-platform comparison: a data API, since Apple's rules limit the feed and search API to promotion.

Doing it with ScrapeIO

ScrapeIO returns public Apple Music catalog data without a developer membership: the apple music search API, apple music track API, apple music album API and apple music artist API, by ID or URL, at 1 credit a call. The 10,000-track job is about $18.80 at the Starter rate. To compare with Spotify, see is the Spotify API free. Agents can use the Apple Music MCP server.

Sources

Checked on 8 November 2026 from each vendor's own pages. Prices and limits change; follow the links before you decide.

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