Head to head · Market fundamentals · October 2026 research run

Financial Datasets vs Tiingo

Financial Datasets scores 61.8 (C) on agent readiness against Tiingo's 46.2 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Tiingo leads on reliability. Both do market fundamentals. Financial Datasets accepts x402. Tiingo doesn't.

Best financial market data APIs for AI agents · All 55 markets comparisons

Which one, for what

Financial Datasets C

Best for An agent doing US company research from SEC-sourced statements, filings, insider and institutional data that wants to pay per call with no account, or a small team on credits.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 80 against 39
  • Agent ergonomics, 73 against 56
  • Security & auth, 49 against 32
  • Payments & pricing, 75 against 30
  • Maintenance & community, 56 against 50
  • Transparency & trust, 63 against 57

Also in its favour

  • An agent can pay per call over x402, with no account

Watch for

No status page, incident history or published uptime; the Professional plan's SLA terms aren't public

Tiingo D

Best for Agents that need clean US end-of-day composites with dividend and split adjustments, fund fees and news on a cheap plan, and anyone who values a long changelog.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 60 against 43

Watch for

The connecting guide documents the token as ?token= in the URL alongside the header

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 Financial Datasets +45

Financial Datasets 75

x402 on the vendor's own endpoints for every documented GET data endpoint, 36 of them, with the last 365 days only and a Non-Professional licence; full history, the market snapshot, filing items and the POST endpoints need a key (35 of 40). Plan prices and overage rates are public, and each x402 endpoint quotes its price in the 402 header, $0.02 on /earnings (20). No free tier or trial found; data calls return 402 until an account holds credits, from $20 (0). An agent can pay by x402 with no account, or open an account with POST /agent/signup and have the owner fund it (20). Total 75.

Tiingo 30

No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Two plan prices public without login, $0 and $30 a month, sold by requests an hour and a day rather than per call; fundamentals and commercial licences by email (10). A free Starter plan at 1,000 requests a day with no card requirement stated (20). The token comes from a browser signup, and the developer programme forbids programmatic registration (0). 0 + 10 + 20 + 0 = 30.

Schema & documentation Financial Datasets +41

Financial Datasets 80

OpenAPI 3.0.1 at financialdatasets.ai/openapi.json, 68 operations with 13 response codes and one security scheme, named the source of truth by the docs (25). llms.txt and a Markdown twin of every page (10). Every operation has a description, and the 402 terms carry a resource description that says when an agent should use the endpoint (17 of 20). 330 parameters, 36 with enums, 32 required, no free-form blobs (12 of 15). Code samples in Python, JavaScript and curl, x402 error values documented, but response examples on only six operations in the spec (11 of 15). No API version and no changelog; the news page has four dated posts in 2026 (5 of 15). Total 80.

Tiingo 39

No OpenAPI document or MCP server was found (0 of 25). llms.txt and llms-full.txt are served, with product routing and licence notes (10). Each documentation page states the endpoint's purpose and timing, such as prices after 5.30 pm ET with corrections to 8 pm, with little on when not to use it (12 of 20). Parameters and response fields are tabled with names and meanings, but types, defaults and allowed values are partly in prose (8 of 15). Examples in Python, Node and PHP on every page; no error responses documented (7 of 15). A changelog dated by entry since 2017 and a one-year support commitment after breaking changes, with no version in the path (12 of 15). 0 + 10 + 12 + 8 + 7 + 12 = 39.

Reliability Tiingo +17

Financial Datasets 43

Graded as a hosted service. No status page was found; status.financialdatasets.ai does not resolve and no page links one (0), so there is no incident history to read (5). The only published limit is 10,000 requests a minute per wallet over x402, with monthly request caps per plan and none per minute for keyed plans (8 of 15). The OpenAPI file declares 429 and the x402 page documents a 503 with Retry-After from the facilitator and a duplicate_payment check on replayed signatures (10 of 15). The Professional plan lists uptime SLAs, with no figure published (10). The API is generally available (10). Total 43.

Tiingo 60

Read with the hosted lines. A public status page on Instatus at status.tiingo.com lists 13 components with a notice history (20). The history in the 90 days to 3 November 2026 shows a 9 hour 59 minute outage of the Blue Ocean ATS endpoints on 21 October, a WebSocket issue on 21 September and two maintenance windows, with nothing recorded before 21 September; a long outage of one niche feed rather than the core price API (15). Limits are published with numbers, 50 and 10,000 requests an hour, 1,000 and 100,000 a day and 1 GB and 40 GB a month (15). No 429, Retry-After or backoff guidance was found (0). No SLA found (0). The end-of-day, news, crypto and forex APIs are generally available, while Equity Realtime and BOATS are in beta (10). 20 + 15 + 15 + 0 + 0 + 10 = 60.

Agent ergonomics Financial Datasets +17

Financial Datasets 73

limit and period on the data endpoints, as_reported flags and snapshot variants, with no field selection (15 of 25). next_page_url cursors and ticker, CIK, market and date filters (18 of 20). A 402 body says what to do next, x402 errors carry named values, and the spec lists 400, 401, 403, 404, 409, 422, 429, 502 and 503 (16 of 20). Data calls are GETs, payment settles only after a successful response, and a replayed x402 signature is refused; no readOnlyHint found for the MCP tools and no idempotency key for the POST endpoints (14 of 20). Few required parameters, 28 compact MCP tools, but the only package, financial-datasets on PyPI, is at 0.1.18 from 26 May 2024 (10 of 15). Total 73.

Tiingo 56

startDate, endDate, resampleFreq, format=csv and column selection on some endpoints size responses; no field selection on end-of-day prices (15 of 25). Date ranges throughout and limit and offset on news, no cursor (15 of 20). Errors are undocumented; a missing token answered 403 with a JSON detail field in our one test call (3 of 20). Every call is a read (16 of 20). Few required parameters, but no official SDK; the docs point to third-party packages (7 of 15). 15 + 15 + 3 + 16 + 7 = 56.

Security & auth Financial Datasets +17

Financial Datasets 49

A plain account key in the X-API-KEY header only, revoked from the dashboard, with no scopes, rotation or expiry; the MCP server adds OAuth 2 with PKCE (plain and S256), dynamic client registration, a revocation endpoint and one scope (20 of 30). Every data endpoint is a read; the x402 route and agent signup don't change the account beyond funding it (15 of 20). Filing text, filing items and news are third-party content, with no guidance on treating them as untrusted (5 of 15). The privacy policy says requests and responses are logged for up to three years; no per-call log is shown to the key holder (5 of 15). security.txt returns 404 and no bounty, SOC 2 or ISO 27001 was found; the terms ask for prompt notice of a compromised key and a subprocessor list is published (4 of 20). Total 49.

Tiingo 32

One token per account with no scopes, documented as ?token= in the URL or an Authorization header, with rotation on the account page since May 2026 (20 less 10 for the query string, plus 2 for rotation, so 12). Every endpoint is a read (15 of 20). News is third-party text and no guidance was found (5 of 15). A usage page shows hourly and daily requests and bandwidth, not a per-call log (0 of 15, no log). security.txt redirects on www and is absent on api, and no disclosure policy, bug bounty or certification was found (0 of 20). 12 + 15 + 5 + 0 + 0 = 32.

Maintenance & community Financial Datasets +6

Financial Datasets 56

UK fundamentals went live on 26 October 2026, India on 23 October, with Japan and South Korea dated for November on the coverage page (30). Dated changes in the last 90 days are x402 on 23 October, UK fundamentals on 26 October, terms and subprocessor list on 29 October, privacy policy on 20 August, with no changelog as such (12 of 20). Contact is a form and the dashboard; no support email, Discord or forum was found, and the GitHub organisation's four repositories couldn't be read because the GitHub API rate limit was reached (6 of 15). The PyPI package is 0.1.18 of 26 May 2024 by the founder, and the docs point to the OpenAPI file and the MCP server rather than an SDK (5 of 15). Package health unknown, dependencies not checked (3 of 10). Total 56.

Tiingo 50

Read as a closed service. The changelog's newest entry is 9 October 2026 (30). Entries dated 9 October and 8 September 2026 fall in the last 90 days, with 21 July just outside, and the status page adds a maintenance window on 28 September (12 of 20). A dated changelog, a support address and a blog, with the developer programme promising priority email support (8 of 15). No official SDK (0 of 15). No package to assess (0 of 10). 30 + 12 + 8 + 0 + 0 = 50.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runFinancial DatasetsTiingoEdge
Reliability16%204360Tiingo +17
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28039Financial Datasets +41
Agent ergonomics13%16.27356Financial Datasets +17
Security & auth14%17.54932Financial Datasets +17
Payments & pricing10%12.57530Financial Datasets +45
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.85650Financial Datasets +6
Transparency & trust7%8.86357Financial Datasets +6
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 61.8/100D 46.2/100

Facts side by side

FactFinancial DatasetsTiingo
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorFinancial Datasets, Inc.Tiingo Inc.
Hosted endpointhttps://api.financialdatasets.aihttps://api.tiingo.com
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTPHTTP, websocket
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingPay per useFreemium
x402yes, from $0.02/callno
Tools exposed28none
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-262026-10-09
Terms last updated2026-10-29couldn't be read
Privacy policy last updated2026-08-202026-02-18
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textcouldn't be read
Terms restrict automated accessyescouldn't be read
Terms restrict benchmarkingyescouldn't be read
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textcouldn't be read
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textcouldn't be read

Verdicts

Financial Datasets

Every documented GET data endpoint takes x402 with no key, failed calls uncharged, and an agent can open and fund an account by API. A public OpenAPI file, llms.txt and a 28-tool OAuth MCP server cover the same data. There is no status page or free tier, keyed rate limits aren't published, and x402 data stops at 365 days.

Tiingo

A dated changelog since 2017, a one-year support commitment after breaking changes, an Instatus status page and a free token at 1,000 requests a day. The token is documented in the URL, no OpenAPI document, error reference, SDK or MCP server exists, and the terms and privacy policy sit on a host that refused our reader.

Before you call either

Financial Datasets

  1. Without a key, read the price from the PAYMENT-REQUIRED header of the 402 and pay with x402 on Base; each page of next_page_url is a separate paid request
  2. Keep limit small and ask for one period at a time; premium endpoints count as 2, 4 or 8 requests on keyed plans
  3. Send the key only to api.financialdatasets.ai in the X-API-KEY header; on 401 ask the owner for a new key rather than signing up again
  4. Treat a 402 on a keyed account as an empty balance and mint a checkout link for the owner; don't retry the call
  5. Check the plan's licence before showing the data to anyone else; redistribution needs Professional or Enterprise

Tiingo

  1. Send the token as Authorization: Token <token>, not as ?token= in the URL
  2. Ask for format=csv on large price pulls; the docs say CSV is 4 to 5 times faster than JSON, and bandwidth counts against the monthly cap
  3. Count requests an hour and a day, not per second; 50 an hour on Starter, 10,000 on Power, reset on the hour and at midnight ET
  4. Expect 403 {"detail":"Please supply a token"} without a token; other error shapes are undocumented, so log the body
  5. Use dashes in share classes (BRK-A), and fetch supported_tickers.zip rather than guessing symbols

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Financial Datasets or Tiingo?

Financial Datasets scores 61.8 (C) on agent readiness against Tiingo's 46.2 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Tiingo leads on reliability.

Do Financial Datasets and Tiingo need an API key?

Financial Datasets takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Tiingo needs an API key. An agent can also pay Financial Datasets per call over x402, with no account.

Can an agent call Financial Datasets and Tiingo without installing anything?

Yes. Financial Datasets has a hosted endpoint at https://api.financialdatasets.ai and Tiingo at https://api.tiingo.com.

Other comparisons with Financial Datasets or Tiingo

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