The best SEC EDGAR API in 2026 — an honest comparison
Facts last verified 2026-08-19.
There is no single best SEC filings API — there is a best one for your workload. This page compares the realistic options for getting EDGAR data programmatically: hosted APIs, the SEC's own free endpoints, and the strongest open-source library.
Who is writing this: we build FilingPulse, so we have an obvious interest. To keep this useful anyway, every factual claim about another provider below was read from that provider's own public pages on the date shown, each section links its source, and we say plainly where a competitor is the better choice. If you find something out of date, email keys@filingpulse.io and we will fix it.
At a glance
| Provider | Free tier | Cheapest paid | Insider (Form 4) data | Push delivery |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FilingPulse | 2,500 requests/month, 10/min, email only — no card | $19/mo (Growth $49, Scale $99; same data on every tier) | Yes — complete normalized Form 4 objects: owners, non-derivative and derivative transactions, holdings, footnotes, remarks | HMAC-signed webhooks on new filings, plus a hosted MCP server for AI agents |
| sec-api.io | First 100 API calls — one-time, not monthly | $49/mo billed annually ($55 monthly) — licensed only for startups under 5 employees, individual developers, and university researchers; business use starts at $199/mo billed annually ($239 monthly) | Yes — Form 3/4/5 Insider Trading API with transaction detail | Real-time WebSocket filing stream on paid plans |
| SEC EDGAR (official APIs) | Free, no key — max 10 requests/second with a declared User-Agent | Free (public domain) | No — the official JSON APIs cover submissions history and XBRL financial facts; Form 4 content is raw XML you parse yourself | None — the SEC states it offers no filing notification service; RSS polling is the official option |
| Financial Modeling Prep | 250 calls/day, end-of-day data | $22/mo billed annually (Premium $59, Ultimate $149; the listed plans are individual-use — commercial licensing is priced separately) | Yes — insider-trade records as flattened per-transaction rows | No filing webhooks documented |
| Finnhub | 60 API calls/minute, personal use | $3,500/mo billed annually (the only listed paid plan, also personal-use licensed) | Yes — flattened insider-transaction records (name, shares, price, code), capped at 100 transactions per call | WebSocket is for market data; filings are poll-only |
| edgartools (open source) | Free — MIT-licensed Python library you run yourself | Free (your own compute and crawl time) | Yes — parses Form 3/4/5 into structured Python objects locally | None — a local library, not a hosted service; no webhooks |
| Massive (formerly Polygon.io) | Market-data plans include a free tier; filings endpoints are part of the stocks plans | Stocks plans are priced separately from filings coverage — see their pricing page | Yes — a Form 4 endpoint exists in their filings family | Form 4 data is documented as updated daily on every plan — a daily batch, not real-time |
Each option, honestly
FilingPulse (that's us)
What it is: three EDGAR datasets — Form 4 insider trades,
8-K corporate events classified by item code, and the S-1/F-1 registration
lifecycle — normalized to one frozen JSON schema, with HMAC-signed webhooks on
new filings and a hosted MCP server for AI agents.
Values stay strings exactly as filed; every documented field is always present.
The full contract is public at GET /v1/schema.
Choose it when: you want complete normalized filing objects (footnotes, derivative legs, holdings — not flattened rows), push delivery the minute a filing lands, and a free tier you can actually build on: 2,500 requests/month with no card. Paid tiers ($19/$49/$99) buy volume, not access — the schema and data are identical on every tier.
Know going in: we cover three verticals, not all of EDGAR — no full-text search, no XBRL financials, no 13F (yet). Form 4 history is backfilling continuously and the live coverage window is published at /v1/health; S-1 tracking is live-forward since August 2026. We launched in July 2026 — young, and we'd rather say so than pretend otherwise. HMAC-signed webhooks on new filings carries a per-subscription secret and a fixed retry ladder.
sec-api.io
Choose it when: The broadest EDGAR coverage of any commercial provider: full-text search (Business tier and up), XBRL-to-JSON, 13F, Form ADV, Form D, and many more form types, with history back to the 1990s.
Know going in: The free tier is a one-time 100-call allowance, the entry plan carries a license restriction and excludes full-text search, and plans are priced by rate limit and data volume (GB) rather than a published monthly request quota.
Facts: https://sec-api.io/pricing, read 2026-08-19.
SEC EDGAR (official APIs)
Choose it when: The source of truth, free forever, and the right choice whenever raw documents or XBRL financial-statement facts are all you need. Every provider on this page, us included, is built on it.
Know going in: Normalization, ticker lookup on filings, 8-K item classification, historical assembly, and any push delivery are yours to build and operate.
Facts: https://www.sec.gov/search-filings/edgar-application-programming-interfaces, read 2026-08-19.
Financial Modeling Prep
Choose it when: A broad financial-data platform — fundamentals, statements, quotes, news — where SEC filings are one dataset among many; good when you want financials and filings from one vendor.
Know going in: Filings endpoints return metadata and links rather than complete normalized filing objects, and delivery is poll-only.
Facts: https://site.financialmodelingprep.com/pricing-plans, read 2026-08-19.
Finnhub
Choose it when: A generous free market-data tier at 60 calls/min that includes filings metadata — hard to beat for hobby projects that mostly need quotes and fundamentals.
Know going in: Insider data is flattened rows without footnotes, derivative detail, or holdings, and the jump from free to paid is $3,500/mo.
Facts: https://finnhub.io/pricing, read 2026-08-19.
edgartools (open source)
Choose it when: The best self-hosted option: actively maintained, parses insider filings, 13F, XBRL and more into Python objects, and costs nothing but your time.
Know going in: You operate everything — polling, storage, backfill, uptime — inside the SEC's 10 req/s budget, and there is no API for non-Python consumers without building one.
Facts: https://github.com/dgunning/edgartools, read 2026-08-19.
Massive (formerly Polygon.io)
Choose it when: A major market-data platform (formerly Polygon.io) that has recently added SEC filings endpoints — attractive if you already use it for market data.
Know going in: Filings recency is documented as daily, so it is not a fit for reacting to filings the minute EDGAR accepts them.
Facts: https://massive.com/docs/rest/stocks/filings/form-4, read 2026-08-19.
How to actually choose
- You need full-text search across all filings, XBRL, or 13F today: sec-api.io has the breadth; budget for the Business tier if full-text search matters.
- You need financial statements first, filings second: the official XBRL APIs are free, and Financial Modeling Prep bundles fundamentals with filings metadata.
- You're comfortable operating your own pipeline: edgartools plus the official APIs costs nothing but your time.
- You want normalized Form 4 / 8-K / S-1 JSON with webhooks, on a free tier with a real monthly quota: that is the exact product FilingPulse is — a key takes under a minute.
Sources
Competitor facts were read from these pages on the dates shown. Pricing and limits change; the linked page always wins over this one.
- sec-api.io — verified 2026-08-19
- SEC EDGAR (official APIs) — verified 2026-08-19
- Financial Modeling Prep — verified 2026-08-19
- Finnhub — verified 2026-08-19
- edgartools (open source) — verified 2026-08-19
- Massive (formerly Polygon.io) — verified 2026-08-19
More comparisons: sec-api.io alternatives · FilingPulse vs sec-api.io · Free SEC EDGAR API options