Head to head · Cooking meal plans · October 2026 research run

Eat This Much Partner API vs spoonacular

spoonacular scores 49 (D) on agent readiness against Eat This Much Partner API's 45.7 (E), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Eat This Much Partner API leads on schema & documentation, security & auth and maintenance & community. Both do cooking meal plans.

Best recipe, nutrition and meal planning APIs for AI agents · All 28 cooking comparisons

Which one, for what

Eat This Much Partner API E

Best for Health, fitness, dietitian and healthcare apps that want generated meal plans and grocery lists under contract.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 75 against 65
  • Security & auth, 48 against 20
  • Maintenance & community, 58 against 22

Watch for

No self-serve signup. Partners are onboarded after a contract, the API is in early access and prices are tailored per partner

spoonacular D

Best for Agents that need recipe search with diet and nutrient filters, ingredient substitutions and nutrition, and meal plans or shopping lists written to a connected user.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 58 against 23
  • Agent ergonomics, 68 against 62
  • Payments & pricing, 40 against 0

Also in its favour

  • Runs on your own machine
  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

One all-powerful key per account, documented in the apiKey query parameter and sent that way by the MCP server

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Payments & pricing spoonacular +40

Eat This Much Partner API 0

Read with the hosted rule. No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Pricing is tailored to each partner and not published; the usage schema's price per credit of 0.01 is an example value (0). No free tier or trial for the API; evaluation is by contacting the company (0). Access starts with a contract signed by a person (0). Total 0.

spoonacular 40

No x402, MPP or L402 (0 of 40). Plan prices and per-point overage rates ($0.005, $0.004 and $0.002) are public, with the point cost of every endpoint (20). The Free plan gives 50 points a day with no card (20). A person signs up in the console in a browser, and no key API exists (0 of 20). 0 + 20 + 20 + 0 = 40.

Maintenance & community Eat This Much Partner API +36

Eat This Much Partner API 58

Read as a closed service. Changelog entry 4.2.0 dated 15 October 2026 (30). Four dated entries in the 90 days to 3 November, 5 August, 6 August, 16 September and 15 October 2026 (20). A support address in the OpenAPI contact block and the changelog, no community channel (8 of 15). No official SDK; the docs point to Postman (0). No package to judge (0). Total 58.

spoonacular 22

Read as a closed service. The newest dated change on the updates page is February 2026 (Nutrition by Photo, recipe extraction from video), more than 180 days before 3 November 2026, and the SDK repository's last push is 2 December 2025 (0 of 30). No dated changes in the last 90 days (0 of 20). Updates page, Discord, contact form and paid support from $99 a month; three open issues on the clients repository could not be read (8 of 15). Generated SDKs in 24 languages, last pushed December 2025, and an npm MCP server, but no vendor entry in the official MCP registry, which lists only third-party spoonacular servers (10 of 15). spoonacular-mcp has one release (1.0.0, 4 August 2025), a test script and no CI (4 of 10). 0 + 0 + 8 + 10 + 4 = 22.

Reliability spoonacular +35

Eat This Much Partner API 23

Read with the hosted lines. No status page found on eatthismuch.com, the docs or the partner page, and status.eatthismuch.com does not resolve (0). No readable incident history (5). Concurrency limits published with numbers, 3 week, 10 day and 20 meal generations per API user, but no rate per minute or day (12 of 15). 429 documented on three generate operations without Retry-After or backoff guidance, and no idempotency keys on calls that are charged (6 of 15). No SLA (0). The partner page calls the API early access with a limited number of partners, so not general availability (0). Total 23.

spoonacular 58

Read with the hosted lines. A status page exists at status.spoonacular.com (UptimeRobot), but on 3 November 2026 it rendered 'There was an error while fetching the data' with no components or history, so half credit (10 of 20) and no readable incident record (5). Daily point quotas and requests-per-second limits are published by plan, 60 a minute on Free and 5, 10 and 20 a second on Cook, Culinarian and Chef (15). HTTP 429 and 402 are documented with three quota headers, but there is no Retry-After, backoff guidance or idempotency key for the meal-plan writes (8 of 15). The pricing page states 99 per cent uptime on Cook and Culinarian and 99.9 per cent on Chef, and the FAQ says SLAs are sold above $250 a month (10). The API is generally available (10). 10 + 5 + 15 + 8 + 10 + 10 = 58.

Security & auth Eat This Much Partner API +28

Eat This Much Partner API 48

Per-user API keys, several per user, created and deleted through the API, the raw key shown once, no expiry or scopes; the key endpoints also accept a session cookie (20 of 30). No read-only key; the only destructive call is deleting a key (6 of 20). Responses are the vendor's own recipe and food data, no untrusted content (10 of 15). GET /gapi/usage-history/ gives a paginated request log per key with credits (12 of 15). No security.txt (404), disclosure policy, bug bounty or certification found (0 of 20). Total 48.

spoonacular 20

One key per account with no scopes, expiry or rotation procedure, documented first as the apiKey query parameter and also sent in the query string by the MCP server; the x-api-key header is the alternative. One all-powerful key (10) less 10 for the documented query string (0 of 30). The data endpoints are read-only and a user's meal plan is written only with that user's username and hash, but there is no read-only key mode or confirmation step (10 of 20). Recipe text, instructions and extracted pages come from third-party websites and no guidance on treating them as untrusted was found (5 of 15). The console shows quota use and the headers report it per call, but no request log was found (5 of 15). security.txt returns 404 and no disclosure policy, bug bounty or certification was found (0 of 20). 0 + 10 + 5 + 5 + 0 = 20.

Schema & documentation Eat This Much Partner API +10

Eat This Much Partner API 75

Public OpenAPI 3.0.3, version 4.2.0, at /g/openapi.yaml with 14 operations and named schemas (25). No llms.txt or Markdown docs; the docs page is the OpenAPI document and a Postman guide (0 of 10). Every operation states its purpose, its credit cost and its concurrency limit, and the week endpoint says when to use render separately; little on when not to use a call (14 of 20). Enums on preset_diet, output, format, generator_focus, num_foods and food_output, but the generate request schemas list no required properties, with the required inputs stated in prose (10 of 15). curl samples on six operations, error responses 400, 401, 404, 429 and 500 with an IssueMap of field messages (12 of 15). The version is in info only, paths carry no version, but the changelog dates each change and labels breaking ones (14 of 15). Total 75.

spoonacular 65

Public OpenAPI 3.0.0 document (info version 2.0.2, 97 paths, 99 operations) in the vendor's spoonacular-api-clients repository, linked from the SDK page, and the MCP server's six tools carry JSON Schema inputs (25). No llms.txt (404) and no Markdown docs (0 of 10). Each endpoint states its purpose and point cost, with little on when not to use it (12 of 20). Parameters are typed with required flags, number is bounded, but diet, cuisine, intolerance and meal-type values sit in prose lists rather than enums (9 of 15). Request and response examples on every endpoint, 402 and 429 documented in the quota text, but the OpenAPI document lists only 200, 401, 403 and 404 and no error body shape (9 of 15). No version in the path; a dated updates page by month back to February 2020 records field removals with notice, the last in December 2022 for 30 June 2023 (10 of 15). 25 + 0 + 12 + 9 + 9 + 10 = 65.

Agent ergonomics spoonacular +6

Eat This Much Partner API 62

food_output simple or expanded, include_groceries on or off, and JSON, HTML or PDF output size responses (20 of 25). Food search has filters and pagination and usage history pages at 100; generation takes exclusions and per-meal settings (16 of 20). IssueMap errors name the field, 429 means a concurrency limit, 404 on food and key ids (14 of 20). No idempotency keys; generation is randomised and charged per call, so a retry costs again (4 of 20). Three required inputs with defaults for the rest, no official SDK (8 of 15). Total 62.

spoonacular 68

number caps results on every search (1 to 100), addRecipeInformation, fillIngredients and includeNutrition switch sections on, and the MCP server lists six compact tools, but there is no field selection and full recipe objects are large (15 of 25). Offset and number pagination with filters by cuisine, diet, intolerances, nutrient ranges, equipment, time and sort keys (18 of 20). 402 and 429 are documented with quota headers, other errors are not, and no error body is shown (10 of 20). Reads are GET and safe to repeat, writes to meal plans and custom foods have no idempotency key, and the MCP tools carry no annotations (10 of 20). No required parameter on complexSearch and generated SDKs in 24 languages (15 of 15). 15 + 18 + 10 + 10 + 15 = 68.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runEat This Much Partner APIspoonacularEdge
Reliability16%202358spoonacular +35
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27565Eat This Much Partner API +10
Agent ergonomics13%16.26268spoonacular +6
Security & auth14%17.54820Eat This Much Partner API +28
Payments & pricing10%12.5040spoonacular +40
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.85822Eat This Much Partner API +36
Transparency & trust7%8.86161even
Negative events≤1500
TotalE 45.7/100D 49/100

Facts side by side

FactEat This Much Partner APIspoonacular
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorEat This Much, Inc.skycraft GmbH
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transportsstdio
AuthAPI keyAPI key
PricingPaidFreemium
x402nono
LicenceProprietary service under a partner contract; the website terms cover the consumer servicenone
Tools exposed06
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-10-152026-02-01
Terms last updatedno date given2026-04-16
Privacy policy last updated2020-12-03no date given
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessyesyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingyesyes
Terms or service can change without noticeyesyes
Arbitration or class-action waiveryesnot found in the text
Popularitynone6 stars

Verdicts

Eat This Much Partner API

A public OpenAPI 3.0.3 document with credits and concurrency limits per operation, enum diet presets and a dated changelog describes a meal plan generator an agent can read well. Access needs a partner contract with no self-serve signup, no published price and no status page, and the API is in early access.

spoonacular

A broad recipe, ingredient, product and meal-plan API with a public OpenAPI document, 24 generated SDKs and a free 50-point day with no card. One key per account travels in the query string by default, the status page showed no data to our reader, and the terms allow caching for an hour at most.

Before you call either

Eat This Much Partner API

  1. Access needs a contract with Eat This Much first; ask the person to contact support@eatthismuch.com before planning calls
  2. Send the key as X-API-Key. Each generate call needs calories, number of meals and preset_diet; keep macro percentages summing to 100 or use gram ranges, not both
  3. Stay under 3 concurrent week, 10 day and 20 meal generations per API user, and treat 429 as a concurrency limit to wait out, not a quota
  4. Request food_output=simple unless expanded nutrition is needed, and set include_groceries=false when the list is not wanted; each call costs credits
  5. Read the changelog before upgrading, since 3.0.0 moved preferred_food_type into meal_settings and 4.0.0 renamed amount to servings

spoonacular

  1. Send the key as the x-api-key header rather than apiKey= in the URL, and keep number small, since every result adds 0.01 points to the call's cost
  2. Read X-API-Quota-Left on each response; a 402 means the day's points are gone until midnight UTC and a 429 means the plan's requests-per-second limit, with no Retry-After to wait on
  3. Use /recipes/complexSearch with addRecipeInformation=true for one call instead of a search followed by one information call per recipe
  4. Do not store ingredients, instructions or nutrition between sessions; the terms allow only recipe ids, titles and image urls to be kept
  5. Show the original recipe source and a link to it with every recipe, as the terms require

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Eat This Much Partner API or spoonacular?

spoonacular scores 49 (D) on agent readiness against Eat This Much Partner API's 45.7 (E), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Eat This Much Partner API leads on schema & documentation, security & auth and maintenance & community.

Do Eat This Much Partner API and spoonacular need an API key?

Both need an API key.

Can an agent call Eat This Much Partner API and spoonacular without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Eat This Much Partner API. spoonacular runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed.

Other comparisons with Eat This Much Partner API or spoonacular

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