Sunrise and Sunset Pricing: Plans, Tiers, and Costs (2026)

Pricing overview

The Sunrise and Sunset API operates on a tiered pricing model, primarily differentiating plans by the maximum number of daily API requests allowed. A free tier is available for initial development and low-volume applications, offering up to 1,000 requests per day without any charge. As usage scales beyond this limit, developers can subscribe to paid plans that increase the daily request quota. The pricing structure is designed to accommodate various application sizes, from small-scale personal projects to commercial applications requiring higher throughput.

Each plan includes access to the core functionality of the API, which provides sunrise, sunset, solar noon, day length, civil twilight, nautical twilight, and astronomical twilight times for a given latitude and longitude. The API uses simple HTTP GET requests and returns data in JSON format, facilitating straightforward integration into web and mobile applications. The pricing model aims to provide predictable costs based on anticipated daily usage, with no variable per-request fees beyond the tier limits.

For detailed information on the API's capabilities and parameters, refer to the Sunrise and Sunset API documentation.

Plans and tiers

Sunrise and Sunset offers a transparent tiered pricing structure. Each tier provides a specific daily request limit, with increasing limits corresponding to higher monthly subscription fees. This model allows users to select a plan that aligns with their application's expected usage patterns. The primary distinction between plans is the request volume, with all tiers offering the same core API functionality for retrieving solar event times.

The following table outlines the available plans, their associated costs, key limits, and suitable use cases:

Users can upgrade or downgrade their plans as their usage requirements change, providing flexibility. The subscription fees are charged monthly, offering predictable costs without unexpected overage charges beyond the defined daily limits.

Free tier and limits

The Sunrise and Sunset API provides a free tier designed to enable developers to test the API, build prototypes, and support low-volume applications without incurring any costs. This free tier offers a generous daily request limit, making it suitable for a range of non-commercial or small-scale projects.

• Daily Request Limit: The free tier allows up to 1,000 API requests per day. This limit resets every 24 hours.
• Features Included: Full access to all core API endpoints, providing sunrise, sunset, solar noon, day length, and various twilight times.
• No Credit Card Required: Users can typically sign up and begin using the free tier without providing payment information, simplifying the onboarding process.
• Ideal Use Cases: Educational projects, personal tools, initial development and testing phases, proof-of-concept applications, and websites with minimal traffic that only require occasional solar event data.

Exceeding the 1,000 requests per day limit on the free tier will result in subsequent requests being denied until the daily limit resets. To accommodate higher usage, upgrading to a paid plan is necessary. The free tier serves as a fundamental entry point, allowing developers to experience the API's functionality and integration ease before committing to a paid subscription. This approach aligns with common practices in the API economy, where free access facilitates adoption and experimentation, as seen with other geospatial and weather APIs that offer similar free or freemium models for initial usage (e.g., Open-Meteo's Astronomy API).

Real-world cost examples

Understanding how the Sunrise and Sunset API's tiered pricing translates into real-world costs can help developers budget for their projects. The following scenarios illustrate potential monthly expenses based on different usage patterns:

• Scenario 1: Personal Weather App (Low Usage)

  • Usage: A personal mobile application that displays sunrise/sunset times for the user's current location, updated a few times a day. Assume an average of 500 requests per day.
  • Cost: $0 per month. This usage falls comfortably within the 1,000 requests/day free tier limit.

• Scenario 2: Small Photography Planning Tool (Moderate Usage)

  • Usage: A web application for photographers to plan shoots based on golden hour and blue hour. It serves 50 unique users daily, with each user making an average of 10 requests (e.g., checking multiple locations or dates). Total daily requests: 50 users * 10 requests/user = 500 requests. Additionally, the application has an internal process that makes 2,000 requests daily for caching popular locations. Total daily requests: 500 + 2,000 = 2,500 requests.
  • Cost: $5 per month. This usage exceeds the free tier but fits within the 10,000 requests/day limit of the Standard plan.

• Scenario 3: Event Scheduling Platform (High Usage)

  • Usage: An event management platform that automatically calculates sunrise and sunset times for outdoor venues across multiple time zones. With 1,000 new events created daily and each creation potentially requiring 5 API calls (e.g., for different dates or twilight phases), plus background data refresh, total daily requests reach 20,000.
  • Cost: $10 per month. This usage requires the Pro plan, which supports up to 25,000 requests per day.

• Scenario 4: Smart Home Integration (Very High Usage)

  • Usage: A smart home system for a regional utility company that adjusts outdoor lighting based on local sunrise/sunset times for 10,000 households. If each household's system makes 3 API calls daily (e.g., for current day, next day, and a specific twilight phase), total daily requests would be 10,000 households * 3 requests/household = 30,000 requests.
  • Cost: $20 per month. This usage fits within the Business plan, which allows up to 50,000 requests per day.

These examples illustrate that the monthly cost is directly tied to the expected peak daily request volume, making it important to estimate usage accurately when selecting a plan.

How the pricing compares

When evaluating the Sunrise and Sunset API's pricing, it is useful to compare it with alternative services that offer similar geospatial or astronomical data. The API's straightforward, subscription-based model with defined daily limits contrasts with some alternatives that may use pay-as-you-go, credit-based, or more complex pricing structures.

• Open-Meteo Astronomy API: Open-Meteo's Astronomy API is known for its free and open-source approach, often providing high request limits without direct charges, funded through sponsorships or umbrella services. This can be a significantly cheaper alternative for very high volumes, though it might require more self-management or community support compared to a commercial offering. Open-Meteo focuses on meteorological and astronomical data with a strong emphasis on free public access, which could be appealing for projects with budget constraints or open-source initiatives.

• Time and Date AS: Time and Date AS offers a comprehensive suite of APIs, including astronomical data. Their pricing model is typically subscription-based, often with various tiers and potentially more granular feature sets beyond basic sunrise/sunset times, such as moon phases, full historical data, or event calendars. While potentially more expensive for basic needs, Time and Date AS might offer greater depth of data or enterprise-grade support, suitable for applications requiring extensive time-related information.

• Google Maps Platform: The Google Maps Platform provides a vast array of geospatial services, including elevation data and timezone information, which can indirectly contribute to calculating solar events if combined with external astronomical algorithms. Google's pricing model is primarily pay-as-you-go, based on actual usage (e.g., per map load, per geocoding request, per API call), with a monthly free credit. While Google Maps is highly scalable and feature-rich, its cost structure can be more complex and potentially higher for simple sunrise/sunset calculations, as it's designed for broader location-based services, not just solar event data.

Sunrise and Sunset's fixed monthly tiers offer predictability, which can be a key advantage for budgeting compared to variable usage-based models. Its simplicity and focus on solar event data mean it avoids the overhead and complexity (and associated costs) often found in broader geospatial platforms. For applications solely focused on sunrise and sunset times, its pricing model often presents a cost-effective and easy-to-manage solution.