Getting Started

From zero to your first electricity price in ~10 minutes. Loxone users: continue to the Loxone overview. Everyone else: same REST API via cURL, Python, or Home Assistant. Community: 120 requests/day, free, no credit card.

This page walks you from zero to your first working API call in about ten minutes. You need a web browser and a terminal with curl (or any tool that can send HTTP requests). No electricity-market knowledge required.

What is this?

SpotpriceAPI is a web service. You ask it “what will power cost?” and it answers with a list of hours and prices in cent per kilowatt-hour (ct/kWh). Austria’s wholesale market (EPEX AT) sets those prices once per day; our forecast fills in the rest of the week.

Everyday example

You run a small script every morning. It reads today’s cheapest three hours and tells your wallbox to charge only then. That script calls GET /v1/forecast once and picks the lowest prices from the list.

When to use this page

• First time using SpotpriceAPI
• Setting up Loxone, Home Assistant, or a custom script
• Checking whether your free Community account is active

When not: You already have a key and want field-level detail — go straight to Forecast or Decision.

What you need

• Email address for a free account (optional for a 48 h trial without login)
• curl or similar HTTP client
• About 10 minutes

Step by step

1. Sign up — open Register, enter email and password. Company name is optional. 2. Confirm email — click the link in your inbox. Your account becomes Community tier automatically: 7-day forecast, Decision API, 120 requests/day. No credit card. 3. Copy your API key — dashboard shows sf_live_…. Store it in a password manager. It is shown in plain text only once. 4. Send your first request — put the key in the header X-API-Key, never in the URL:

curl https://api.spotpriceapi.com/v1/forecast \
  -H "X-API-Key: sf_live_YOUR_KEY"

Python (stdlib, no extra packages):

import urllib.request
req = urllib.request.Request(
    "https://api.spotpriceapi.com/v1/forecast",
    headers={"X-API-Key": "sf_live_YOUR_KEY"},
)
print(urllib.request.urlopen(req, timeout=30).read().decode())

Loxone: put the key only in the Virtual Output HTTP header — see Loxone overview, never inside PicoC source.

5. Read the JSON — look at access first. It tells you your tier and how many hours you get. 6. Try Hours Demand — with plant profile + telemetry, call POST /v1/decision/hours-demand (see also Hours and [Quick start](/code-samples?scenario=hours)). 7. Try Decision / Forecast — GET /v1/decision for charge/hold/discharge; GET /v1/forecast for the price list.

Try without a key (Basic tier)

No account needed — 48 hours only, no Decision:

curl https://api.spotpriceapi.com/v1/forecast

Example response (short)

{
  "api_version": "v1",
  "market": "EPEX_AT",
  "generated_at": "2026-08-01T06:05:00+02:00",
  "timezone": "Europe/Vienna",
  "access": {
    "tier": "community",
    "label": "Community",
    "full_version_available": true
  },
  "horizon_hours": 168,
  "forecast_status": "ok",
  "forecast": [
    { "start": "2026-08-01T07:00:00+02:00", "price_ct_kwh": 8.42, "price_source": "day_ahead" }
  ]
}

In plain words: forecast_status: ok means the price list is usable. Each item in forecast[] is one hour. price_ct_kwh: 8.42 means about 8.4 cents per kWh for that hour.

Important fields

Common mistakes

• Key in the URL — does not work. Header only: X-API-Key.
• Trusting HTTP status alone — Forecast returns 200 even when access is limited. Read access and forecast_status.
• Expecting 168 h without a key — anonymous/Basic gets 48 h only.

Next steps

• Authentication — tiers and key safety
• Forecast API — full price endpoint
• Decision API — charge/discharge signals
• Decision Windows — pick N cheapest hours
• Code Samples — snippets with your own key