Headless CMS plans comparison for API calls

Introduction

When you're using a headless CMS to power your website - you're always doing some API calls in the background to pull your content. In most cases, the CMS providers limit the number of interactions with their APIs and you have to be aware of this quota. If you exceed the number of calls allowed in your pricing tier - your system may stop working!

Below you will find a comparison of popular headless CMS with their API call limits (if provided by the CMS vendor), available plans, and the most important thing: cost.

API calls per plan table

CMS	Free Tier	First paid tier	Next paid tier
Flotiq	2M	4M	8M
Contentful	2M	2M+	Unlimited
DatoCMS	100k	1M	2M
ButterCMS	N/A	N/A	N/A
Kentico	N/A	N/A	N/A
Magnolia	N/A	N/A	N/A
Strapi	N/A	N/A	N/A
NetlifyCMS	N/A	N/A	N/A
Forestry	N/A	N/A	N/A
Sanity	500k (CDN), 100k (standard)	15M (CDN), 3M (standard)	75M (CDN), 15M (standard)
Prismic	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited

Comparison

1.  Flotiq CMS

Link: Flotiq

Available plans and API calls limits

Flotiq has 4 available plans

• Free
• Basic
• Pro
• Enterprise

Users with a free account have a limit of 2M calls, for Basic users, Flotiq has 4M calls to use, and for Pro users, 8M monthly calls.

Enterprise plans are priced individually and have no limits on monthly calls.

Cost

2. Contentful

Link: Contentful Website

Available plans and API calls limits

Contentful plans are split into 3 parts:

• Community
• Team (Medium/Large)
• Enterprise

Contentful gives 2 000 000 API Calls for free accounts, same with additional overages for Medium/Large Team and no limit for Enterprise.

Cost

Contentful charges for Team Accounts, they have 2 plans:

• 489$/month for Medium Teams
• 879$/month for Large Teams

3. DatoCMS

Link: DatoCMS Website

Available plans and API calls limits

In DatoCMS user has 4 account type options:

• Developer
• Professional
• Scale
• Enterprise

DatoCMS API calls limits are refreshing every month starting with 100k API calls for free developer accounts, rising to 1M for Professional and 2M for Scale plans. Additionally, you have to pay 9 euros more for every 250k extra API calls.

Cost

DatoCMS provides a free "Developer" plan. Professional and Scale start at 199 euro/month and 299 euro/month, respectively.

4. Butter CMS

Link: ButterCMS Website

ButterCMS does not provide information about available API calls limits.

5. Kentico

Link: Kentico Software Website

Available plans and API calls limits

Kentico is a headless CMS geared mostly towards big projects. They have 3 plans:

• Developer
• Scale
• Enterprise

Kentico provides 200,000 API calls for Business users, and 2M API Calls for Premium per month.

Limits are shown here: https://kontent.ai/pricing/fup/

Cost

Kentico provides a free developer account. Scale plan you can get for $2,499. Enterprise is priced individually.

5. Magnolia

Link: MagnoliaCMS Website

MagnoliaCMS does not provide information about API calls limit. You can download the community edition for free. Other options are available via the demo request form.

6. Strapi

Link: Strapi Website

Strapi is an open-source and self-hosted headless CMS, therefore any limits are set up by the instance owner.

7. NetlifyCMS

Link: NetlifyCMS Website

NetlifyCMS is open-source headless CMS, therefore any limits are set up by the instance owner.

8. Forestry

Link: Forestry Website

Description

Forestry provides 4 plans:

• Personal
• Starter
• Pro
• Enterprise

Cost

Forestry provides a free account. Paid plans start at $29 per month and end with custom for enterprise solutions.

9. Sanity

Link: SanityCMS Website

Available plans and API calls limits

Sanity users can choose 1 from 3 plans:

• Standard
• Advanced
• Enterprise

Sanity provides two types of API:

• standard API - default, the live and uncached API. This will give always the freshest data but requests are slower. Call limits start from 100k for standard plans, rising to 500K for advanced and 3M for the enterprise.
• CDN API - CDN distributed cached API, that will give a very fast response to requests that have been cached. Call limits start from 500k for standard plans, rising to 2M for advanced and 10M for the enterprise.

Cost

Sanity provides free(standard plan) accounts. Advanced cost starts from $99 a month, Business from $949 and Enterprise depends on needs and requirements.

10. Prismic

Link: Prismic Website

Available plans and API calls limits

Unlike other HeadlessCMS players, Prismic provides many plans for users:

Developers group:

• Community (free)
• Starter ($7/month)
• Small ($15/month)

Organization group:

• Medium ($100/month)
• Platinum (500$/month)
• Enterprise(custom)

Prismic offers unlimited API calls for all plans in groups above