API data-use policy

What you may do

Query the API or MCP server, display what it returns, quote it, and build on it: in an assistant, an app, a spreadsheet, a forum post. The data is free, and it will stay free. There is no paid tier and no plan for one.

What we ask in return

1. Attribution, with a link. Every price, statistic or listing you show names Benchlot and links the guide_url (for a price) or source_url (for a listing) that came with it. The text via Benchlot is enough. The attribution object in every response has the exact wording.
2. Link to the source, unaltered. A listing belongs to the dealer, forum member or seller who posted it. Send people to them. Do not wrap, shorten, track or add parameters to source_url. We do not either.
3. No bulk mirroring. Cache what you need to answer a question; do not re-publish, re-license or sell the dataset, in whole or in part, or stand up a copy of the price guide. Aggregate statistics you compute yourself are yours.
4. Respect source licences. eBay asking prices and availability may not be stored past the price_valid_until we return, and never past 24 hours; after that the row says price_status: stale and you fetch the listing itself. Listings from r/handtools are credited via r/handtools and never to an individual.
5. Respect the limits. Thirty requests and five photo identifications per window anonymously; more with a free key. Do not rotate keys or addresses to get around them. If you need more, ask.

What the numbers are

Statistics over public listings: a median and quartiles of recorded sales, de-duplicated across sources, with multi-item lots and parts listings left out, rebuilt nightly. They describe what sellers asked and buyers paid in the places Benchlot indexes, which skews toward specialist dealers. They are offered without warranty. Read confidence, freshness and coverage on every answer; a confidence of low means fewer than eight recorded sales and no sold median is published, so do not state one.

What Benchlot is not

Not a marketplace. Benchlot holds no inventory, brokers nothing, takes no commission and carries no affiliate links. The API carries no tracking parameters. The FAQ says the same thing in fewer words.

Keys, logs and privacy

A key is tied to the email address it was sent to and can be revoked on request. We log each request’s route, status, latency, key id and a salted hash of the caller’s IP, to run the rate limit and to see what agents actually ask for. We never log request bodies, photos sent for identification beyond what the scan feature already stores, or the addresses you submit for alerts beyond the alert itself, which the address holder must confirm by email.

Changes

Breaking changes to /api/v1 get a new version prefix; this policy may change with notice on this page. Questions: rob@benchlot.com.