Is the TikTok API free? Prices, limits and approval (2026)

November 8, 2026

Short answer

TikTok's developer pages list no fee for its APIs, but none of them is an open data API. The Display API reads only accounts that log in to your app, the Research API is for approved academic and non-profit researchers in certain regions, and the Commercial Content API covers ads shown in the EU. To read any public profile or video for a commercial product, you need a third-party data API.

Short answer: TikTok does not publish a price for any of its APIs. The real cost is access. Each official API is built for one kind of user, and if you are not that user, it is closed to you. Here is what each one reads, who can get it, and how long it takes.

The official TikTok APIs at a glance

API	Who can get it	Approval	Limits	Reads other accounts?
Display API	Any developer with an approved app	Login Kit and product approval; each user logs in source	600 requests a minute per endpoint source	No. Only users who authorize your app
Research API	Academic researchers in the US, EEA, UK, Canada and Switzerland; some non-profits source	Application per project, answer typically within 4 weeks	1,000 requests and 100,000 records a day source	Yes, public data, for approved research only
Commercial Content API	Anyone, from any country source	Online form, answer within 2 working days	Not published	Ads and advertisers only, EU data only
Data Portability API	Qualified apps worldwide source	Use case, UX mockups, privacy and security review	Not published	No. Only EEA and UK users who consent

Display API: free, but only for your own users

The Display API returns a user's basic profile (avatar, display name, bio, profile link) and metadata for their recent videos TikTok. To use it you need a developer account, approval for both Login Kit and the API product, and the user.info.basic and video.list scopes. Each TikTok user signs in through Login Kit and grants access source.

The rate limit is 600 requests a minute per endpoint on a sliding window, and you can ask support for more source. That is generous. The catch is scope: you cannot look up @nike unless Nike's account logs in to your app.

Good for: creator portfolios, link-in-bio tools, and apps that show a user their own videos.

Research API: rich data, narrow door

This is the only official API that reads public TikTok data at scale: profiles, followers and following lists, liked, pinned and reposted videos, video search, and comments source. Access is for research only. Creators, advertisers and commercial users are not eligible FAQ.

Eligible: academic institutions in the US, EEA, UK, Canada or Switzerland; EU not-for-profit research bodies, plus a beta for select researchers in the US, UK, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein; and Brazilian academic or non-profit groups studying youth safety source.
Apply: a developer account with a professional email, a research proposal, disclosed funding, data security commitments and ethical review. PhD candidates need a letter from an advisor. TikTok typically answers within 4 weeks.
Quota: 1,000 requests a day and up to 100,000 records a day across APIs. The followers and following API allows 20,000 calls and 2 million records a day. The quota resets at 00:00 UTC and is shared across your organization source.
Query shape: up to 100 videos a request, and each video query covers at most 30 days between start and end date video query spec.
Freshness: new videos can take up to 48 hours to appear in search, and view and follower counts up to 10 days to update source.
Terms: refresh stored data at least every 30 days, no commercial use, and send TikTok a copy of any publication at least 7 days before it comes out Research API terms.

What the quota buys

Records, not requests, are the binding limit. At 100 videos a request, 1,000 requests would be 100,000 videos, which is exactly the daily record cap. A one-year study of a hashtag needs at least 13 queries because of the 30-day window. If that hashtag has 1.5 million videos, the collection takes 15 days at full quota, before comments.

Commercial Content API: ads, EU only

This API serves TikTok's ad library: ad published and last-seen dates, targeting, how many people saw the ad, and some data on disapproved ads. Ads stay available for one year after they were last shown. Anyone can apply, in any country, and TikTok aims to answer within 2 working days. For now it includes only data from EU countries TikTok. Our TikTok ad library guide covers how to research ads with it.

Data Portability API: users export their own data

It returns a consenting user's posts, profile, followers and following lists, activity and even direct messages, but only for users in the EEA and UK. Apps pass a privacy and security review first source. It is a data export tool, not a research tool.

Which one fits you

You show users their own TikTok videos: Display API.
You study EU advertising: Commercial Content API.
You are a university researcher with an ethics-approved project in an eligible country: Research API. Budget a month for approval.
Your users in Europe want to move their TikTok history into your app: Data Portability API.
You are a business that needs public profiles, videos, comments or search for accounts you don't control: no official API fits. Use a third-party data API.

The free open-source route

The best-known option is TikTokApi, an MIT-licensed, unofficial Python wrapper. It drives a Playwright browser and needs an ms_token copied from your own tiktok.com cookies. Its README says an EmptyResponseException means TikTok is blocking the request and has detected a bot, and that the library can break when TikTok changes its site README. Fine for a weekend notebook; fragile for production.

Know the terms risk too. TikTok's US terms forbid scraping or extracting data with automated systems unless TikTok USDS Joint Venture approves it in writing TikTok terms, section 3.4.

This is not legal advice. If your project depends on it, ask a lawyer who knows your use case and your country.

The pay-per-call option

A data API sells you read access to public data per request, without an approval cycle. With ScrapeIO, most TikTok calls cost 1 credit: tiktok profile API, tiktok profile videos API, tiktok comments API, tiktok search keyword API and tiktok transcript API.

Worked example: track 50 creators every week with one profile call and two pages of videos each. That is 150 calls a week, about 650 a month, or roughly $1.22 at the Starter rate of $1.88 per 1,000 credits. Failed calls, private accounts and cached repeats are not charged.

curl "https://scrapeio.com/v1/tiktok/profile?handle=nike" \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_KEY"

Start with 100 free credits, no card. See every endpoint on the TikTok platform page, compare in detail on TikTok Research API alternative, or connect an AI agent through the TikTok MCP server. For a wider tool list, read best TikTok scrapers and APIs.

Sources

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

100 free credits, no card. Credits never expire.

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