The PurpleAir API uses a points-based billing system. API calls consume points, and if you do not have enough points to make an API call, the API will return an error.
The points pricing table can be found below. The more points you purchase the more value you will get per dollar. The left column shows the price ranges and the right column shows the number of points you’ll receive per dollar.
| Purchase Amount | Points Per USD |
|---|---|
| $10 - $49 | 100,000 |
| $50 - $249 | 150,000 |
| $250 - $499 | 200,000 |
| $500 - $999 | 300,000 |
| $1,000 - $4,999 | 500,000 |
| $5,000+ | 1,000,000 |
If you spend $52, you will get 7.8 million points. This is because each dollar is worth 150,000 points at that price.
$52 x 150,000 = 7,800,000 points
The points you purchase will be applied to your “Organization.” You need to move the points into a “Project” before they can be used. More information is found here.
These values are subject to change. Please refer to develop.purpleair.com for the most current ranges. Feedback is welcome.
One Million Starting Points
New users start with one million points. Here is an example of a daily request that demonstrates the usage of 1,000,000 points. This example will get the real-time “pm2.5” field every 10 minutes for a single sensor.
Using the “get_sensor” endpoint costs 1 point. The “pm2.5” field costs 2 points each time it is collected.
Getting the data every 10 minutes will result in 144 requests being made a day (1440 minutes in a day / 10 minute average).
To calculate the number of points spent daily, we need to add the cost of the endpoint to the cost of the fields. That number will then be multiplied by the number of sensors and the number of requests made daily. The final equation would look as follows:
(get_sensor + pm2.5) x 1 sensor x 144 daily requests = number of points spent daily
(1 + 2) x 1 x 144 = 432 points spent daily
To see how quickly this request will use the one million starting points, we divide one million by the number of points spent daily.
1,000,000 / 432 gives you 2,314 days of data, which is the same as 6.3 years of data.
Learn More
You can learn how to optimize your API usage.
Learn more about purchasing points and how to navigate the Online Dashboard.