Exercise Database API Pricing: What Does It Cost?
Last verified October 22, 2026 · 7 min read
Sources checked (12) · October 22, 2026
- exercisedb.dev/ — AscendAPI, previously ExerciseDB; free V1 with no sign-up or key (snapshot)
- docs.ascendapi.com/products/edb-v1/overview — V1 free tier, paid media, dataset size (snapshot)
- oss.exercisedb.dev/api/v1/exercises — free V1 endpoint, total 1,500 (snapshot)
- docs.ascendapi.com/products/edb-v2/overview — V2 via RapidAPI, watermarked free media, catalog figures (snapshot)
- docs.ascendapi.com/quickstart/overview — free Basic plan contents (snapshot)
- docs.ascendapi.com/guides/ratelimiting — free and paid rate limits (snapshot)
- docs.ascendapi.com/llms.txt — GitHub and RapidAPI links (snapshot)
- api-ninjas.com/pricing — plans, prices, call quotas, commercial use and storage (snapshot)
- api-ninjas.com/api/exercises — five results per call, premium offset and images, allexercises gating (snapshot)
- github.com/ExerciseDB/exercisedb-api — README and AGPL LICENSE only, no code (git clone)
- github.com/yuhonas/free-exercise-db — Unlicense; 876 exercises and 1,746 JPEGs counted in dist/exercises.json
- github.com/wger-project/wger — AGPL code, per-entry Creative Commons data
Covered here:ExerciseDBwger
What each option costs#
Read the market as two kinds of deal: renting a hosted API, or taking an open dataset and serving it yourself. Everything in this table was read from the provider's own pages or repository on October 22, 2026.
| Option | Free entry point | Paid | Licence or terms | Media |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ExerciseDB V1 (AscendAPI) | 1,500 exercises, no key, no sign-up, at oss.exercisedb.dev | Paid V1 tier on RapidAPI; price not read | Terms of use not readable from our environment | GIFs: 180p free, 360p to 1080p paid |
| ExerciseDB V2 (AscendAPI) | Basic plan on RapidAPI: 2,000 requests a month, 200 exercises, no credit card | Paid plans on RapidAPI, watermark-free; prices not read | Same | MP4 video and images; free-tier media watermarked |
| ExerciseDB listing by justin-WFnsXH_t6 (RapidAPI) | Could not read: the listing renders only its title | Could not read | Could not read | Animated GIFs (our July review) |
| API Ninjas Exercises | Free plan: 3,000 calls a month, 100 an hour, evaluation and demo only | Developer $59 a month ($39 billed yearly); Business $149 ($99); Professional $299 ($199) | Free plan: no commercial use, no storing data, attribution required | Still images, premium plans only |
| wger | Free, open source; you host it, or read the public instance at wger.de | None | Code AGPL-3.0-or-later; exercise data Creative Commons per entry | Still images; video supported in its code |
| free-exercise-db | Free; 876 exercises as JSON on GitHub | None | The Unlicense (public domain) | 1,746 JPEG images |
The split that matters: a hosted API hands you search, media hosting and updates and bills you for calls or plans, while an open dataset costs nothing and moves the hosting, search and maintenance onto you.
ExerciseDB plans, free tier and rate limits#
"ExerciseDB" now means AscendAPI for most purposes. The exercisedb.dev home page reads "Previously ExerciseDB" above the AscendAPI name, and AscendAPI's documentation names the ExerciseDB/exercisedb-api repository as its GitHub. Its documentation, read on October 22, 2026, describes two exercise products.
- ExerciseDB V1, free and keyless. "1,500 exercises with 180p GIFs. No authentication required, just call the hosted API directly", at
oss.exercisedb.dev/api/v1/exercises. The endpoint itself reported a total of 1,500 when we called it through our snapshot runner. AscendAPI describes the full V1 dataset as "over 2,000" exercises, and a paid V1 tier on RapidAPI adds 360p to 1080p images and GIFs, difficulty levels and exercise types. - ExerciseDB V2, free Basic plan. AscendAPI's quickstart says the Basic plan is "completely free": 2,000 requests a month, 200 exercises in the library, exercise images and videos, and no credit card. Its V2 docs say both tiers run through RapidAPI and "The only difference is that free tier media is watermarked"; the paid tier "serves clean, watermark-free assets". AscendAPI's own figures for the full V2 catalog are 11,000+ exercises, 15,000+ videos and 20,000+ images, vendor numbers we have not counted.
- Rate limits. AscendAPI's rate-limiting guide says "All free plans include a limit of 1,000 requests per hour per API key", that "Paid plans have no strict rate limit", and that media served through its CDN "is generally unlimited". The V2 Basic plan's 2,000-request monthly cap is the tighter limit in practice.
- What we could not read. AscendAPI's paid prices are on its RapidAPI listings, which render nothing without a browser, and its terms of use sit behind a short link that answered our snapshot runner with a bot check. So we cannot tell you a paid price, or whether the free tiers allow commercial use. Ask AscendAPI before you ship on a free tier.
- Still nothing to self-host. When we cloned the exercisedb-api repository on October 22, 2026 it held a README and an AGPL-3.0 LICENSE and no code, in three commits, the last on November 25, 2025.
The older RapidAPI listing published by justin-WFnsXH_t6 is the one our July review described as a capped free tier, paid tiers and per-request overage. Today its page renders only the word "ExerciseDB" to a non-browser client, so we could not re-check those terms or whether it is the same product as AscendAPI's listings.
So is ExerciseDB free? Yes, to start: V1 free with no key, or V2's Basic plan with watermarked video. Neither free tier comes with readable terms, and a 200-exercise library is a trial, not a catalog. To see which of these APIs actually serve video, read exercise video APIs compared.
API Ninjas Exercises pricing#
API Ninjas sells one key across its whole API catalog, so the Exercises API is priced by the account plan. Its pricing page, read on October 22, 2026:
| Plan | Price (monthly, or per month billed yearly) | Calls a month | Commercial use | Caching or storing data |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 3,000 (and 100 an hour) | No | No |
| Developer | $59, or $39 yearly | 100,000 | Yes | No |
| Business | $149, or $99 yearly | 1,000,000 | Yes | Yes |
| Professional | $299, or $199 yearly | 10,000,000 | Yes | Yes |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Yes | Yes |
The pricing page lists the two figures per plan beside a "Monthly Yearly 34% off" toggle; we read the lower one as the yearly rate because that is the gap the toggle advertises. The Free plan is "Evaluation and demo purposes only" and requires attribution.
Three things in the Exercises reference change what you pay for. /v1/exercises "Returns up to 5 exercises" per call, and paging further uses an offset parameter marked premium. The images field, start and finish photos "in movement order", is premium only. And /v1/allexercises, the full list of names for a muscle group, needs "Business tier and above, or any annual plan". If your app keeps a local copy of the catalog, as most exercise apps do, note that the Developer plan does not allow caching or storing data; Business does.
The catch: AGPL, quotas and hidden costs#
- AGPL copyleft (wger). wger's application code is AGPL-3.0-or-later. AGPL is a strong copyleft licence with a network clause: if you run a modified version as a service, you can be obliged to publish your modifications. For a closed-source product that is an architecture and legal question, not a footnote. The exercisedb-api repository carries the same licence file but no code, so you meet ExerciseDB as a hosted API under its terms of use instead. free-exercise-db is public domain and carries no such obligation.
- Watermarks and caps on free tiers. AscendAPI's free V2 media is watermarked and limited to 200 exercises; its free V1 media stops at 180p GIFs. Plan the upgrade before you design the UI around them.
- Commercial-use and storage terms. API Ninjas' free plan excludes commercial use, and its Developer plan excludes storing data. Both are restrictions on what you can ship, separate from the price.
- Your own infrastructure. Self-hosting wger or free-exercise-db still costs servers, bandwidth, uptime and the engineering time to search, fix and update the data.
- Counts differ by source. AscendAPI gives 1,500 for free V1, "over 2,000" for V1 and 11,000+ for V2; free-exercise-db's README says 800+ while its file held 876 when we counted. Treat any headline number as version-specific.
How it compares and cheaper paths#
If you need a hosted API at low volume, AscendAPI's free tiers or API Ninjas' Developer plan get you running cheaply; check the terms before launch. If you want no recurring cost and can host files, the open options are genuinely free, and the deciding factor is the licence.
- For the full landscape, see the exercise database APIs comparison.
- Leaving ExerciseDB? See ExerciseDB alternatives.
- Choosing between paying for ExerciseDB and hosting free-exercise-db? See ExerciseDB vs free-exercise-db.
- Already on wger and hitting the AGPL or share-alike terms? See wger alternatives.
- Ready to wire one up? The ExerciseDB API integration guide walks through it.
- For the wider picture, see free fitness APIs and the overall fitness API cost breakdown.
Honest close#
Exercise-content pricing moves on the paid side and is licence-gated on the free side. This page was re-checked against AscendAPI's documentation and home page, API Ninjas' pricing and Exercises pages, and the free-exercise-db, wger and exercisedb-api repositories on October 22, 2026. AscendAPI's paid prices and terms of use, and the older RapidAPI listing, could not be read. Re-open the live pages before you budget.
Frequently asked questions
- Is there a free exercise database API?
- Yes, several, as of October 22, 2026. AscendAPI, formerly ExerciseDB, serves its V1 dataset free at oss.exercisedb.dev: 1,500 exercises with 180p GIFs, no sign-up and no API key. Its ExerciseDB V2 has a free Basic plan on RapidAPI with 2,000 requests a month, 200 exercises and watermarked images and video. wger (AGPL, self-hosted) and free-exercise-db (public domain) are free for the software and data, though you pay for your own hosting. API Ninjas' free plan is for evaluation only.
- How much does ExerciseDB cost?
- It is free to start. AscendAPI, the company now behind exercisedb.dev, offers ExerciseDB V1 free with no key (1,500 exercises, 180p GIFs) and a free ExerciseDB V2 Basic plan on RapidAPI (2,000 requests a month, 200 exercises, watermarked media). Paid plans add the full catalogs, higher-resolution and watermark-free media, and no strict rate limit, but their prices are on AscendAPI's RapidAPI listings, which we could not read on October 22, 2026, so check them there.
- What is the AGPL licensing implication for exercise APIs?
- wger's software is licensed under the GNU AGPL, a strong copyleft license with a network-use trigger: running a modified version as a network service can obligate you to release your modifications under the same license. For a closed-source commercial product this is a real architectural and legal consideration. free-exercise-db, by contrast, is public domain (Unlicense) with no obligations. Get any AGPL dependency reviewed before you build on it.
- Can I use these exercise APIs for a commercial product?
- It depends on the plan, separately from price. API Ninjas' free plan excludes commercial use and its Developer plan excludes storing data, so a catalog you keep locally needs its Business plan. AscendAPI's terms of use were unreadable from our environment on October 22, 2026, so ask it whether its free tiers allow commercial use. free-exercise-db is public domain with no restrictions, and wger is free to use commercially but carries AGPL obligations if you run modified code. This is not legal advice.
- How much does the API Ninjas Exercises API cost?
- API Ninjas prices by account plan. Its pricing page, read October 22, 2026, lists a Free plan for evaluation only (3,000 calls a month, no commercial use), Developer at $59 a month or $39 billed yearly (100,000 calls, commercial use, no data storage), Business at $149 or $99 (1,000,000 calls, storage allowed) and Professional at $299 or $199. Exercise images and paging past the first five results are premium features.
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Independent comparison, last reviewed October 22, 2026. Pricing, rate limits, and feature availability change often — confirm current details in each provider’s official documentation before you commit. Product and company names are trademarks of their respective owners; AIFitnessAPI is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any product listed here.
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