REST API

Overview

The REST API gives anyone free, programmatic access to the Unpaywall database.

If you're using the API, we recommend you subscribe to the mailing list in order to stay up-to-date when there are changes or new features.

Schema

The API response uses the same shared schema as the database snapshot and Data Feed.

Authentication

Requests must include your email as a parameter at the end of the URL, like this: api.unpaywall.org/my/request?email=YOUR_EMAIL.

Rate limits

Please limit use to 100,000 calls per day. If you need faster access, you'll be better served by downloading the entire database snapshot for local access.

Versions

The current version of the API is Version 2, and this is the only version supported. Version updates are announced on the mailing list.

Alternatives

Depending on your use case, there are often easier ways to access the data than using the API. You can learn more about these in our brief Get Stated pages:

Endpoints

GET /v2/:doi

Description	Gets OA status and bibliographic info for an given DOI-assigned resource.
Accepts	A valid DOI.
Returns	DOI Object
Example	https://api.unpaywall.org/v2/10.1038/nature12373?email=YOUR_EMAIL

GET /v2/search?query=:your_query[&is_oa=boolean][&page=integer]

Usage notes and additional examples are available in the Unpaywall FAQ.

This endpoint can be accessed through our Article Search tool.

Description	Provides the full `GET /v2/:doi` responses for articles whose titles match your query. 50 results are returned per request and the `page` argument requests pages after the first.
Accepts	`query`: The text to search for. Search terms are separated by whitespace and are AND-ed together by default. The title must contain all search terms to be matched. This behavior can be modified by: "quoted text" : words inside quotation marks must appear as a phrase to match OR : replaces the default AND between words, making a match on either word - : negation, only titles not containing this term will match `is_oa`: (Optional) A boolean value indicating whether the returned records should be Open Access or not. true: filter the results to OA articles false: filter the results to non-OA articles null/unspecified: return the most relevant results regardless of OA status `page`: (Optional) An integer indicating which page of results should be returned. 1/unspecified: return results 1 to 50 2: return results 51 to 100 etc.
Returns	An array of results sorted by the strength of the query match. Each result consists of: `response`: the full DOI Object for this match `score`: the numeric score used to rank the results `snippet`: An HTML-formatted string showing how the title matched the query. For example: "Single-<b>cell</b> photoacoustic <b>thermometry</b>"
Example	https://api.unpaywall.org/v2/search?query=cell%20thermometry&is_oa=true&email=YOUR_EMAIL