Is the SoundCloud API free? Prices, limits and terms (2026)

November 8, 2026

SoundCloud's API costs nothing today, and its terms of use say so directly: "Access to the SoundCloud API is currently provided free of charge", with the right to charge later. The limits and the terms are what shape your project. This post covers price and access; for scraping options and artist metrics see SoundCloud scraper API.

Getting credentials

Every call needs a registered app. SoundCloud's API guide gives two paths:

• Recommended: with an Artist Pro account, use SoundCloud's remote-pairing API CLI to create an app and print its client_id and client_secret.
• Browser: create an app in Your Apps and copy the credentials.

For public data such as search, track lookup and URL resolution, use the client credentials flow. Send the ID and secret with HTTP Basic auth only; the body form is not supported.

curl -X POST "https://secure.soundcloud.com/oauth/token" \
  -u "CLIENT_ID:CLIENT_SECRET" -d "grant_type=client_credentials"

curl "https://api.soundcloud.com/resolve?url=https://soundcloud.com/ARTIST/TRACK" \
  -H "Authorization: OAuth ACCESS_TOKEN"

Tokens last about an hour. You may request only 50 tokens per 12 hours per app and 30 per hour per IP, so store one token and refresh it instead of asking for a new one per job.

Rate limits

From SoundCloud's rate limits page. Apps approved for higher production access may get up to 10 times these numbers. Limits are per client_id; read the X-Ratelimit-* headers.

Worked example: 2,000 artists a day

Refreshing 2,000 artist profiles and their latest tracks is about 4,000 calls. At 100 a minute that is 40 minutes of your whole budget, so run it overnight and leave room for anything else the app does. If you also search 200 keywords an hour, you are well under the 3,000 search cap.

What the terms forbid

• Scraping or similar techniques to copy, aggregate or republish content.
• Ripping, capturing or copying audio, file-save features, and offline access.
• Copying content to train AI, or using it as input to any AI technology.
• Building an alternative content service from SoundCloud content.
• In-app purchases for content or features already on SoundCloud.

You must credit the uploader and SoundCloud, and include visible backlinks on web pages. Some commercial use is allowed if you follow the rest of the terms.

Which one fits you

• An app or tool that plays and links SoundCloud tracks: the official API. It is free and supports playback.
• Artist and track research at a few thousand calls a day: the official API, scheduled to the limits.
• Downloading audio: tools like scdl and yt-dlp do this, but the terms forbid ripping, so use them only for your own uploads or with permission.
• AI features over SoundCloud content: the terms forbid using content as AI input. Get written permission first.
• SoundCloud plus other platforms in one schema: a data API.

Common mistakes

• A new token per request. With 50 tokens per 12 hours per app, a script that asks for a token on every run locks itself out by lunch. Store the token and use the refresh token.
• Credentials in the body. The client credentials grant accepts only HTTP Basic auth.
• Long-term caches. The terms allow session-based caching only as far as reasonably necessary, so do not build a permanent copy of track data from the API.
• Ignoring the headers. Each limit group returns its own X-Ratelimit-Remaining; a stream-heavy app can hit the daily stream cap while the per-minute budget looks fine.

Doing it with ScrapeIO

ScrapeIO returns public SoundCloud metadata with no app or token juggling: the soundcloud artist API, soundcloud artist tracks API and soundcloud track API, 1 credit each. The 4,000-call nightly job is about $7.50 at the Starter rate. Agents can use the SoundCloud MCP server.

Sources

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

• https://developers.soundcloud.com/docs/api/terms-of-use
• https://developers.soundcloud.com/docs/api/guide
• https://developers.soundcloud.com/docs/api/rate-limits
• https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/blob/master/supportedsites.md