Name: exchangerate.dev: FX rate API
Brand: exchangerate.dev

OANDA alternative: vs exchangerate.dev

OANDA API offers 3–5 s spot updates on eligible plans, with Lite at $450/month; Fixer has daily ECB snapshots and 100 free requests/month; exchangerate.dev offers 5,000 free calls/month. Keep OANDA if you need its business-data catalog or 3–5 second spot updates on an eligible plan.

Reviewed September 2026

Currency and forex API comparison

Feature	exchangerate.dev	OANDA
Free-tier limit	5,000 calls/mo	7-day trial only
Intraday refresh (all 144 currencies)	144 currencies ~60s; Free 15m late	✓ 3–5s on eligible plans
Per-value source + market_session
MCP server (every plan, incl. free)
Historical daily series	Free 30 days; Plus/Pro to 1999	✓ plan-dependent
No credit card to start
Endpoint adaptation

exchangerate.dev

All 144 currencies update about every 60 seconds on trading days, 15 minutes late on Free. Every response includes source and market_session fields. MCP is included on every plan.

From $0 · free tier, 5,000 calls/mo, no card

OANDA

Paid exchange-rate API plans with daily averages and 3–5 second spot data on eligible tiers. There is a seven-day trial, but no permanent free tier.

Lite $450 or $4,850 · 7-day trial

Where exchangerate.dev wins

exchangerate.dev includes 5,000 free calls per month, 30 days of daily history, and MCP on every plan. All 144 currencies update about every 60 seconds on trading days, 15 minutes late on Free. Every response includes source and market_session fields. No credit card is required.

Where OANDA leads

OANDA leads when a treasury or finance team needs its broader business-data catalog or 3–5 second spot updates on an eligible plan. exchangerate.dev is the lower-cost self-serve option: an anonymous first call, a permanent free tier, source + market_session on every response, and MCP on every plan.

Verdict

Choose exchangerate.dev when intraday freshness, per-value provenance, MCP-native access, and free-tier headroom matter. Keep OANDA if you need its business-data catalog or 3–5 second spot updates on an eligible plan.

Related comparisons

Questions

Does OANDA offer a free tier for currency-rate data?

No permanent free tier is listed. OANDA lists Lite at $450 or $4,850 and offers a seven-day trial. Its separate v20 API has a demo mode for testing against a brokerage account, not as a general-purpose currency-data free tier. exchangerate.dev's free tier runs indefinitely: 5,000 calls a month, no credit card, no trial expiry.

How fresh are OANDA's exchange rates?

OANDA's Exchange Rates API updates spot rates roughly every 5 seconds, and separately publishes daily fixing rates, genuinely fast for an enterprise data feed. All 144 currencies update about every 60 seconds on trading days, 15 minutes late on Free, with a source and market_session field on every response so you always know a value's provenance.

Does OANDA have an MCP server for AI agents?

Not officially, as of this writing, OANDA does not publish its own MCP server. An unofficial, community-built MCP project exists on GitHub for OANDA's separate trading API, unaffiliated with OANDA itself. exchangerate.dev ships a first-party, keyed MCP server (api.exchangerate.dev/v1/mcp) on every plan, including free.

Why compare exchangerate.dev to OANDA if OANDA is a trading platform?

OANDA is best known as a retail and institutional forex broker; its Exchange Rates API is a separate paid data product built for treasury and finance teams. OANDA lists Lite at $450 or $4,850. exchangerate.dev is a lower-cost, self-serve alternative with a permanent free tier and source labels on every response.