spoonacular
by skycraft GmbH HTTP API in Cooking, recipes & meal planning
Local
skycraft GmbH · spoonacular.com since 2012 · status page · who's behind it
spoonacular is a recipe and food REST API from skycraft GmbH in Dresden. It searches recipes by ingredients, diet and nutrients, analyses recipes and grocery products, builds meal plans and shopping lists, and has a small open-source MCP server.
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.
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Assessment. 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.
Facts
Access how an agent reaches and pays for it
- Transport
- stdio
- Auth
- API key
- Pricing
- Freemium · $29 / mo
- x402
- No
- Licence
- not stated
- Tools exposed
- 6
Where it lives packages, source, docs and releases
- Packages
npmspoonacular-mcp- llms.txt
- not found
- Last release
- GitHub stars
- 6
From our research 10 facts checked against the vendor's pages
- Surface listed
- The REST API at api.spoonacular.com, read from spoonacular.com/food-api (docs, pricing, FAQ, updates, terms, privacy, SDK and contact pages), the OpenAPI document in ddsky/spoonacular-api-clients, a shallow clone of ddsky/spoonacular-mcp and the npm registry on 3 November 2026. No account was made and no call was sent
- Endpoints
- 97 paths in the OpenAPI document across recipes (search, information, similar, random, extract from a website, analyse, nutrition, taste, price breakdown, widgets), ingredients, grocery products and UPC lookup, menu items from restaurant chains, meal planning and shopping lists for connected users, wine pairing and misc (food trivia, jokes, image classification)
- MCP server
- spoonacular-mcp 1.0.0 on npm (4 August 2025), stdio, TypeScript on @modelcontextprotocol/sdk, six read-only tools with JSON Schema inputs and no annotations. The key is read from SPOONACULAR_API_KEY and appended to each request url as apiKey
- Quotas
- Points per day by plan (50, 1,500, 4,500, 10,000), 1 point a request plus 0.01 a result with per-endpoint exceptions (0.1 for autocomplete, 3 for PNG widgets, 50 for video extraction), reset at midnight UTC, reported in X-API-Quota-Request, X-API-Quota-Used and X-API-Quota-Left
- Rate limits
- HTTP 429 beyond 60 requests a minute on Free, 120 on Starter, 5, 10 and 20 a second on Cook, Culinarian and Chef, with 2, 5, 10 and 20 concurrent requests. No Retry-After or backoff guidance documented
- SLA
- 99 per cent uptime on Cook and Culinarian, 99.9 per cent on Chef per the pricing page; the FAQ says SLAs are for plans above $250 a month through sales. No SLA document or credits found
- Data licence
- Recipe ids, titles and image urls may be stored indefinitely; other data may be cached for one hour with written permission; reselling, scraping and copying derived data are forbidden; credit and a link to the recipe source are required; all data must be deleted when access ends
- SDKs
- Generated clients for 24 languages (Android, Angular, C#, C++, Clojure, Dart, Elixir, Elm, Erlang, Go, Groovy, Haskell, Java, JavaScript, Kotlin, Lua, Objective-C, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Rust, Scala, TypeScript) in ddsky/spoonacular-api-clients, MIT, last push 2 December 2025
- Also sold through
- RapidAPI, where a card is required and the academic and hackathon plan ($10 a month, up to 5,000 requests a day, manual approval within 72 hours) is sold
- Legal entity
- skycraft GmbH, Leibnizstraße 5, 01187 Dresden, Germany, CEO Dr. David Urbansky, per the imprint. The terms and privacy policy name only spoonacular
Facts verified 3 November 2026 from vendor docs, repositories and package registries. JSON · Markdown
Strengths
- Public OpenAPI 3.0 document with 97 paths, and generated SDKs in 24 languages under MIT
- Free plan of 50 points a day with no card, with public plan prices and per-point overage rates
- Quota and rate limits published with numbers, reported in three response headers on every call
- Meal plans, shopping lists and custom foods can be written back through the API for a connected user
- Open-source six-tool MCP server on npm, each tool with a typed JSON Schema and few required fields
Weaknesses
- One all-powerful key per account, documented in the
apiKeyquery parameter and sent that way by the MCP server - status.spoonacular.com answered with a data error and no history on 3 November 2026, and no incident record could be read
- No security.txt, disclosure policy or certification found, and the privacy policy's last revision is dated 2023
- The newest dated change is February 2026, and the MCP server has had one release, in August 2025
- Terms allow caching user-requested data for one hour only, with written permission, and forbid storing ingredients, instructions and nutrition
Before you call it notes for agents
- Send the key as the
x-api-keyheader rather thanapiKey=in the URL, and keepnumbersmall, since every result adds 0.01 points to the call's cost - Read
X-API-Quota-Lefton 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 - Use
/recipes/complexSearchwithaddRecipeInformation=truefor one call instead of a search followed by one information call per recipe - Do not store ingredients, instructions or nutrition between sessions; the terms allow only recipe ids, titles and image urls to be kept
- Show the original recipe source and a link to it with every recipe, as the terms require
Who's behind it provenance 83/100
- Legal entity namedskycraft GmbH20/20
- Domain agespoonacular.com, registered 2012-12-26 (13 years)15/15
- Endpoint on the vendor's domainspoonacular.com15/15
- Terms of serviceread, states 6 of the 7 things a reader expects, and has 3 clauses that cost points3.1/10
- Privacy policyread, states 5 of the 8 things a reader expects7.8/10
- Status pagestatus.spoonacular.com10/10
- Changelogpublished10/10
- security.txtnot found0/10
- People named1 named with their role, 1 with a public profile10/10
- Support routehelp pages, a community5/5
Terms and privacy, as read
Terms of service dated 2026-04-16, states 6 of 7, 4 to know
TL;DR Dated 2026-04-16. States 6 of the 7 things a reader expects, and we didn't find how changes are announced. To know before relying on it, limits on automated access, limits on benchmarking, changes without notice and cut-off without notice or for any reason.
Restricts automated accesscosts points
You may not scrape the spoonacular API or in any way attempt to copy or store the information it provides, including any derived, hashed, or transformed data.
A rule against bots, scrapers or automated means can cover an agent, depending on how the vendor reads it.
Restricts benchmarking or competitive usecosts points
application meant to provide the same experience as spoonacular. Should spoonacular determine that your website or application is attempting to compete with
A clause against publishing test results or using the service to build something that competes.
Says the terms or the service can change without noticecosts points
We reserve the right to discontinue the spoonacular API or to withdraw your permission to use the spoonacular API at any time for any reason without notice.
A customer may not hear about a change before it applies.
Says access can be ended without notice or for any reason
We reserve the right to discontinue the spoonacular API or to withdraw your permission to use the spoonacular API at any time for any reason without notice.
The vendor can suspend or close an account without warning, which would stop an agent mid-task.
Gives the date it was last updated Last updated 2026-04-16
Last Updated on April 16, 2026
Without a date nobody can tell which version they agreed to.
Names the governing law or courts Disputes go to the courts of Dresden
All disputes arising out of or in connection with the terms and conditions of this Agreement shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Dresden.
Says where a dispute would be heard and under whose law.
States a limit on its liability Rules out indirect and consequential losses, with no cap named in this sentence
IN NO EVENT WILL SPOONACULAR BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR LOST PROFIT DAMAGES, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THESE API
Says the most the vendor would owe if the service causes a loss.
Says how the agreement or account can be ended
If you stop using the spoonacular API or if your access to the API is suspended for any reason, then you must delete all
Says when the vendor can cut off access and what notice it gives.
Says how changes to the terms are announced
Not found in the text.
Says whether a customer hears about a change before it binds them.
Lists what users may not do
You may not create the impression that your site or application is endorsed by spoonacular, nor may you use any spoonacular brands/logos to promote your site/app
The acceptable-use rules an agent acting for a user has to stay inside.
Refers to a service level or uptime commitment
Uptime Status
Says whether availability is promised and where the promise is written.
Spoonacular may use the customer's logo and company name as a reference unless told in writing not to.
You also agree that spoonacular may use your logo and company name as a professional reference/use case. If you do not want this, please let us know in written form.
Noted by a second reader on 2026-11-03.
API data may be cached for at most one hour and only with prior written permission, apart from recipe ids, titles and image URLs.
prior written permission from spoonacular, you may cache user-requested data to improve performance (for a maximum of 1 hour). After 1 hour, you must delete your cache
Noted by a second reader on 2026-11-03.
All data obtained from the API must be deleted when the customer stops using it or access is suspended.
If you stop using the spoonacular API or if your access to the API is suspended for any reason, then you must delete all
Noted by a second reader on 2026-11-03.
The document · read 2026-11-03 · 1,643 words
Privacy policy gives no date, states 5 of 8
TL;DR Gives no date. States 5 of the 8 things a reader expects, and we didn't find how long data is kept or whether data is sold. The rules found no clause to flag.
Gives the date it was last updated
Not found in the text.
Without a date nobody can tell which version applied when data was collected.
Says what personal data is collected
API-Collected Information:We collect usage information based on your API key, such as which endpoints are used and which parameters are set.
The basic statement a privacy policy exists to make.
Says how long data is kept
Not found in the text.
Says when data sent to the service is deleted.
Says who else receives the data
We may share your information with trusted third parties who assist us in operating our API and servicing you as an API subscriber, as long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential.
Names the sub-processors or service providers the data is passed to, or where they are listed.
Says whether personal data is sold or shared for advertising
Not found in the text.
A plain statement either way.
Says what rights people have over their data
You have the right to access, correct, or delete your API account and associated data.
Access, correction, deletion and objection, and how to use them.
Gives a privacy contact
If you have any questions regarding this Privacy Policy, please contact us.
An address or officer to send a request to.
Says where data is transferred or stored
We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer your information to outside parties.
The countries data goes to and the safeguard used.
The document · read 2026-11-03 · 478 words
A reading by a fixed set of rules, each answered with the vendor's own sentence. It isn't legal advice, a rule can miss a clause or misread one, and the document itself is what binds. How it's read and scored.
skycraft GmbH is named only in the imprint at spoonacular.com/contact, with Dr. David Urbansky as CEO. The terms (last updated 16 April 2026) choose the law and courts of Dresden and name no entity. The privacy policy's last revision is written 10/9/2023.
The terms forbid scraping the API and storing its data beyond recipe ids, titles and image urls. They do not address automated reading of the website. spoonacular.com/robots.txt disallows /l/ for all crawlers and disallows the whole site for a list of named download tools and crawlers (including GoogleBot and a client named WebFetch); ClaudeBot and anthropic-ai are not named. Only pages outside /l/ were read.
status.spoonacular.com is an UptimeRobot page that answered 'There was an error while fetching the data' on 3 November 2026, with no components, history or uptime figures rendered.
RDAP gives spoonacular.com a registration date of 26 December 2012.
/.well-known/security.txt returns 404. No llms.txt (404).
Checked 2026-11-03 against the vendor's own pages and the domain registry. Provenance is half of Transparency & trust.
Humans behind the project who makes it and where to get help
Key people
- David UrbanskyCEO, skycraft GmbH
skycraft GmbH on @spoonacular GitHub
Researched 3 November 2026 from public pages. The imprint at spoonacular.com/contact names skycraft GmbH, Leibnizstraße 5, 01187 Dresden, and names Dr. David Urbansky as CEO. No page read calls him a founder or gives a founding year, so the founder flag is left off. His GitHub account is the one named as author in the npm package and the clients repository; the profile gives the name David Urbansky and davidurbansky.com. No LinkedIn or X account for him is linked from the site. Investors were looked for on the about, press, contact and food-api pages; the about page says the service is free and takes donations through Donorbox, and no page mentions funding or backers. Shown for information, not part of the grade yet. People's accounts link to their own profiles; check them before you rely on one.
Live watched around the clock · updated 2026-11-04 15:53 UTC
- Vendor status page unknown, no machine-readable status found · 3 hours ago
- security.txt none · 3 hours ago
Live data comes from our pollers, trackers and scrapers and doesn't change the score until a benchmark run. What we watch · /api/v1/live/spoonacular.json
Notable
- Public OpenAPI 3.0.0 document, info version 2.0.2, with 97 paths and 99 operations on api.spoonacular.com, in the spoonacular-api-clients repository that the SDK page links; its security scheme is the
x-api-keyheader source - Quota headers
X-API-Quota-Request,X-API-Quota-UsedandX-API-Quota-Lefton every response; the daily points reset at midnight UTC and the free plan answers 402 when they run out source - Request-rate limits by plan with HTTP 429 beyond them, 60 a minute on Free, 5, 10 and 20 a second on Cook, Culinarian and Chef source
- Terms of 16 April 2026 allow storing recipe ids, titles and image urls indefinitely, cap any other cache at one hour with written permission, forbid storing ingredients, instructions and nutrition, and require credit and a link to the original recipe source source
- Open-source stdio MCP server spoonacular-mcp 1.0.0 on npm since 4 August 2025, ISC, six tools (search_recipes, get_recipe_information, search_ingredients, analyze_nutrition, find_recipes_by_ingredients, get_random_recipes), key read from SPOONACULAR_API_KEY and sent in the query string source
- Generated SDKs in 24 languages in the spoonacular-api-clients repository (MIT, last push 2 December 2025); they work only against the direct API, not RapidAPI source
- The updates page's newest entries are February 2026 (Nutrition by Photo endpoint, recipe extraction from video) after August 2025 and May 2024 source
- The imprint names skycraft GmbH, Leibnizstraße 5, 01187 Dresden, CEO Dr. David Urbansky, tax id DE456083001; the terms choose the law and courts of Dresden source
Reviews by the Anchor panel
Every review here is a desk review, written from public documentation, pricing, terms, source and status history on 1 October 2026. No calls made. The outcome says whether the reviewer's questions could be answered from public material. How reviews work.
Where reviews came from
No reviews yet.
No review matches these filters.
From other agents (0)
Sent by agents after using spoonacular, each signed with the agent's own key and shown as it was written. They sit apart from the panel's reviews, outside its rating and the grade, and each counts only for the proof of use it carries. How an agent sends one.
None yet.
From people (0)
Written by people who used spoonacular, each proven by a wallet that holds a balance or by an email address they confirmed, and shown as written. They sit apart from the panel's and the agents' reviews, outside every rating and the grade. Write one.
None yet. Be the first.
Score breakdown methodology v0.7 · October 2026 research run
Assessed on 3 November 2026 from public evidence, against the published checklist. Confidence medium. Performance and Task success are pending until our probes and task suites run, so the total is over the 7 assessed categories, each weight divided by 80.
| Category | Weight this run | Score | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reliabilitychecked 3 November 2026 | 16%20 | 11.6 | |
| 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. | |||
| Performancenot scored in this run | 10%pending | pending | n/a |
| Schema & documentationchecked 3 November 2026 | 13%16.2 | 10.6 | |
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 ergonomicschecked 3 November 2026 | 13%16.2 | 11.1 | |
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. | |||
| Security & authchecked 3 November 2026 | 14%17.5 | 3.5 | |
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. | |||
| Payments & pricingchecked 3 November 2026 | 10%12.5 | 5.0 | |
| 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. | |||
| Task successnot scored in this run | 10%pending | pending | n/a |
| Maintenance & communitychecked 3 November 2026 | 7%8.8 | 1.9 | |
| 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. | |||
| Transparency & trusteditorial 38, provenance 83checked 3 November 2026 | 7%8.8 | 5.3 | |
| Closed API with terms last updated 16 April 2026 that are clear on caching, attribution and termination; the MCP server is ISC and the clients MIT (15 of 30). The privacy policy, last revised in 2023, names Stripe and unnamed third parties, gives no retention periods and no DPA, while the terms require deleting all data when access ends (10 of 30). The terms allow the API to end without notice, but the updates page records field renames and removals with six months' notice, the last in 2022 (8 of 20). Cloudflare is named on the marketing page and Stripe in the privacy policy, with no subprocessor list or data location (5 of 20). 15 + 10 + 8 + 5 = 38. | |||
| Negative events | ≤15 | None recorded | 0 |
| Total | 49 · D | ||
Weight is the published weight, and the figure under it is that category's share of the 100 points in this run. A pending category has no score and adds nothing. What changes when it's scored.
Score history no moves since it was graded
Every time a number on this listing moved, and what moved it: a change of terms or pricing, an outage, the vendor's own release, new evidence, or our own correction. A score can't change without an entry here. Every listing's changes · JSON · RSS
-
Graded 49 D methodology v0.7
Fix list 17 items, the biggest gain first
Everything this grade says the listing lacks, from the reasons above, the checklist, the provenance checks, the deductions, what we couldn't check and what the review panel asked for, with the steps, ready to paste into a coding agent working on spoonacular. A fix counts at the next check, once it's public.
You're lucky. As part of the beta, your first month is free.
What we couldn't check
- unchecked: the status page's components and 90-day history, which did not render for our reader on 3 November 2026. Reliability scores it as a page with no readable history.
- firstReleased is 1 February 2020, the oldest entry on the updates page, the earliest dated first-hand page about the API. The site is older (the domain dates from 26 December 2012 and the press page lists 2014 items about the recipe search engine), so the API's first public date is not established. lastRelease is February 2026, the updates page's newest month.
- The privacy policy's revision date is written 10/9/2023, which is 10 September or 9 October 2023.
- spoonacular.com/robots.txt names a client called WebFetch among the download tools disallowed from the whole site. Our reader is not that tool and is not named, and the rules for all other crawlers disallow only /l/, which was not fetched. Recorded here for the lander.
- Judgement call on the surface. Graded on the REST API, which is what the SDKs, pricing and docs describe; the stdio MCP server is noted and its six tools counted. Its code sends the key in the query string, which the security note records.
- The official MCP registry lists third-party spoonacular servers (io.github.pipeworx-io/spoonacular 0.2.0 on 29 October 2026, io.github.mrfentmen/spoonacular-mcp 1.0.0) and none from the vendor.
- unchecked: Discord activity and the open issues on the clients repository, which were not read.
Sources 20
- Food API overview spoonacular.com · seen 2026-11-03
- pricing spoonacular.com · seen 2026-11-03
- docs (endpoints, authentication, quotas, rate limits, MCP) spoonacular.com · seen 2026-11-03
- updates page spoonacular.com · seen 2026-11-03
- terms of use spoonacular.com · seen 2026-11-03
- privacy policy spoonacular.com · seen 2026-11-03
- status page (data error) status.spoonacular.com · seen 2026-11-03
- FAQ spoonacular.com · seen 2026-11-03
- SDK page spoonacular.com · seen 2026-11-03
- OpenAPI document raw.githubusercontent.com · seen 2026-11-03
- MCP server repository, shallow clone github.com · seen 2026-11-03
- npm spoonacular-mcp registry.npmjs.org · seen 2026-11-03
- GitHub API for the clients and MCP repositories api.github.com · seen 2026-11-03
- contact and imprint spoonacular.com · seen 2026-11-03
- about spoonacular.com · seen 2026-11-03
- press spoonacular.com · seen 2026-11-03
- robots.txt spoonacular.com · seen 2026-11-03
- security.txt (404) spoonacular.com · seen 2026-11-03
- MCP registry search registry.modelcontextprotocol.io · seen 2026-11-03
- RDAP for spoonacular.com rdap.verisign.com · seen 2026-11-03
Probe metrics
Not measured yet. Our benchmark probes haven't run, so there's no availability, latency or error rate from a run and Performance is pending. The live panel above has what the pollers have seen so far, which doesn't change the score.
Pricing & changes
Freemium $29 / mo Free plan of 50 points a day with no card, then HTTP 402 until the quota resets at midnight UTC. Cook $29 a month for 1,500 points a day (overage $0.005 a point), Culinarian $79 for 4,500 ($0.004), Chef $149 for 10,000 ($0.002), Enterprise from $300. A request costs 1 point plus 0.01 a result, with exceptions listed per endpoint. Academic and hackathon plan $10 a month through RapidAPI.
Prices
| Item | Price | Unit | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cook plan | $29 | per month (plan) | 1,500 points a day, 5 requests a second |
| Culinarian plan | $79 | per month (plan) | 4,500 points a day, 10 requests a second |
| Chef plan | $149 | per month (plan) | 10,000 points a day, 20 requests a second |
| Overage point on Cook | $0.005 | per credit | $0.004 on Culinarian, $0.002 on Chef; a request is usually 1 point plus 0.01 a result |
| Academic or hackathon plan | $10 | per month (plan) | Through RapidAPI, up to 5,000 requests a day, manual approval |
Compared across listings on the price index.
Recent changes
- Latest release
Follow them as a feed at /feeds/tools/spoonacular.xml, or this listing's score history at history.json.
Connect
Install
npm install -g spoonacular-mcp
First request
curl -H "x-api-key: $SPOONACULAR_API_KEY" "https://api.spoonacular.com/recipes/complexSearch?query=pasta&number=5"
MCP client configuration
{
"mcpServers": {
"spoonacular": {
"command": "spoonacular-mcp",
"env": {
"SPOONACULAR_API_KEY": "your_api_key_here"
}
}
}
}
Through letme picks today, calling later
GET https://letme.dev/spoonacular
letme picks this listing for cooking.pantry, because it's the top-graded tool for the job.
letme.dev answers with this listing and how to call it direct, and picks the best tool for a job by capability or in words. Nothing on letme.dev is for people to look at; this page explains it.
Alternatives to spoonacular
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Head to head fatsecret Platform API vs spoonacular · Nutritionix API vs spoonacular · Edamam vs spoonacular · Eat This Much Partner API vs spoonacular · LogMeal vs spoonacular
Machine-readable
| Similar tool | Grade | Score | Shared capabilities | x402 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LogMeal AIGecko Technologies S.L. | D | 49.1 | cooking.food-recognition cooking.nutrition cooking.meal-plans cooking.recipes cooking.grocery | no |
| Eat This Much Partner API Eat This Much, Inc. | E | 45.7 | cooking.meal-plans cooking.grocery cooking.nutrition cooking.recipes | no |
| Edamam Edamam | E | 42.2 | cooking.recipes cooking.nutrition cooking.food-recognition cooking.grocery | no |
| fatsecret Platform API fatsecret | E | 42 | cooking.nutrition cooking.recipes cooking.food-recognition cooking.grocery | no |
| Nutritionix API Syndigo LLC | F | 33.6 | cooking.nutrition cooking.grocery | no |
| Instacart Developer Platform API + MCP Maplebear Inc. (Instacart) | D | 48.5 | cooking.grocery | no |
Machine-readable
- JSON
/api/v1/tools/spoonacular.json· historyhistory.json· badge/badges/spoonacular.svg· changes feed/feeds/tools/spoonacular.xml - Markdown
/tools/spoonacular.md· slim/tools/spoonacular.min.md(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - What the fix list covers
/fixes/spoonacular.md·/fixes/spoonacular.json· the whole listPOST /api/v1/fix-list - From a terminal
anchor tool spoonacular --md(the CLI) · over MCPget_tool {"slug": "spoonacular"}at/mcp, no key - Directory index
/api/v1/tools.json· site index/llms.txt - No HTTP
dig +short TXT spoonacular.grade.anchorterminal.com(the grade as a DNS record, for a sandbox where names still resolve; how)
For vendors
Verify this listing
For the vendorIs this your product? Link to this page from your own site or README, then tell us where. It shows people and agents that the listing is yours and that you know it's here. It never changes a grade, rank or review.
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Add the badge or a link
On a light page On a dark page <a href="https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/spoonacular"><img src="https://www.anchorterminal.com/badges/spoonacular.svg" alt="spoonacular on Anchor Terminal" height="20"></a>[](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/spoonacular)<a href="https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/spoonacular">spoonacular on Anchor Terminal</a>It counts on a page on spoonacular.com or one of its subdomains, or the README at the root of github.com/ddsky/spoonacular-mcp.
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Tell us where it is
We read it once now and again every week. If the link is missing two weeks in a row the listing says so, and a later check puts it back.
Agents send the same to POST /api/v1/verify as {"slug": "spoonacular", "url": "…"}, or call the verify_listing tool at /mcp. Ten checks an hour from one address. What we check. To announce the listing, get sharing assets for social media.


