API-Football is a great place to start. When your app goes to production and the data has to hold up, here is how Sportmonks compares, and where API-Football is still the right call.
| Sportmonks | API-Football | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price | €29/month (Starter) | Free tier; ~$19/month Pro |
| Distribution | Direct + dashboard | RapidAPI marketplace |
| League coverage | 2,200+ | ~1,175+ |
| Stats depth | Consistent; xG, Pressure Index, predictions | Varies; many leagues lack stats |
| Rate limits | Hourly limits, scalable add-ons | Daily caps (100/day free) |
| Support | 7-day human + personal CS | Community forums |
| Uptime | 99.99% | Not published |
| Pricing model | Transparent, no contracts | Transparent flat tiers |
Figures current as of June 2026. Verify on each provider's site.
Sportmonks publishes 99.99% uptime, runs multi-source data validation with on-site scouts, and handles 6.4 billion API requests per month. API-Football does not publish uptime and relies on RapidAPI as an intermediary.
A common API-Football issue is that many leagues return fixtures but not match or player statistics, which breaks fantasy and analytics use cases. Sportmonks delivers uniform data formats across its 2,200+ leagues.
Sportmonks includes 7-day human support and a personal customer success contact. API-Football's support is community forums, which slows you down when something breaks mid-match.
API-Football's coverage thins out where production apps need it most. With Sportmonks, a single response carries lineups, events, statistics, xG and predictions — consistently, across 2,200+ leagues. Hover a team to see the exact slice of this response they build on.
Manchester City
Gianluigi Donnarumma
Bernardo SilvaC
Rodri
Rayan Cherki
Erling Haaland
Arsenal
David Raya
Martin ØdegaardC
Declan Rice
Kai Havertz
Gabriel Magalhães{
"data": {
"id": 19427734,
"league_id": 8,
"name": "Manchester City vs Arsenal",
"starting_at": "2026-04-19 15:30:00",
"xgfixture": [
{ "participant_id": 9, "location": "home", "data": { "value": 1.7624 } },
{ "participant_id": 19, "location": "away", "data": { "value": 1.3798 } }
],
"lineups": [
{
"player_id": 154421, "team_id": 9,
"player_name": "Erling Haaland", "jersey_number": 9,
"type_id": 11,
"player": { "image_path": "…/players/21/154421.png" }
},
// … 21 more lineup entries (full XI per team + bench)
],
"events": [
{ "minute": 16, "type_id": 14, "player_name": "Rayan Cherki", "related_player_name": "Matheus Nunes", "result": "1-0" },
{ "minute": 18, "type_id": 14, "player_name": "Kai Havertz", "result": "1-1" },
{ "minute": 65, "type_id": 14, "player_name": "Erling Haaland", "result": "2-1" },
// … 14 more events (subs + cards through 90+6')
],
"statistics": [
{ "type_id": 45, "location": "home", "data": { "value": 59 } }, /* Possession */
{ "type_id": 42, "location": "home", "data": { "value": 15 } }, /* Shots */
{ "type_id": 80, "location": "home", "data": { "value": 498 } }, /* Passes */
// … 75 more bilateral stat entries
],
"predictions": [
{ "type_id": 237, "predictions": { "home": 41.53, "draw": 24.07, "away": 34.36 } }, /* FT Result */
{ "type_id": 231, "predictions": { "yes": 61.25, "no": 38.75 } }, /* BTTS */
{ "type_id": 240, "predictions": { "scores": { "1-1": 11.12, "2-1": 8.66 } } }
]
}
}
"Fast and consistent — critical for live features."
Getting started was very smooth; within a short time we were retrieving data and integrating it into the platform.
predictions[]
Squads & ratings
"Real-world football, inside FIFA Career Mode."
SoFIFA pulls up-to-date squads, ratings and historical seasons straight into the game.
lineups[]
Media automation
"Automated sports media at scale."
ScorePlay powers media management with real-time Sportmonks data — every match, every moment.
statistics[]
AI commentary
"AI football commentary in 12+ languages."
Botbrains scales generative match commentary across markets, powered by Sportmonks events.
events[]"Worldwide coverage at unmatched price."
Depth of coverage on the worldwide package was unmatched at the price point.
xgfixture[]
Betting models
"Logic over gut feeling in sports betting."
Fine Line replaces guesswork with data-driven decisions across 2,200+ leagues.
predictions[]Hover a team to see what they build — and the exact slice of this one response behind it.
lineups · events · statistics · xgfixture · predictionsReal-time scores and in-play events across 2,200+ leagues with consistent formats, so coverage does not break on smaller competitions.
Live Score API →Consistent player and match statistics across every league, the exact gap where API-Football's stats coverage thins out.
Fantasy Football API →Pre-match and in-play odds, predictions, and data-integrity practices in a single feed.
Sports Betting API →Most API-Football integrations map cleanly onto Sportmonks' v3 REST API. The main shift is Sportmonks' includes-and-filters model: instead of chaining separate calls, you pull related data in a single request by adding includes.
| What you call in API-Football | Sportmonks v3 equivalent |
|---|---|
| Fixtures / live scores | GET /v3/football/fixtures + ?include=scores;events;statistics |
| League standings | GET /v3/football/standings/seasons/{id} |
| Players | GET /v3/football/players/{id} |
| Pre-match & in-play odds | GET /v3/football/odds/pre-match/fixtures/{id} |
| Predictions | GET /v3/football/predictions/probabilities/fixtures/{id} |
API-Football wins on headline price: a free tier and a ~$19/month Pro plan with daily caps. Sportmonks starts at €29/month (Starter, 5 leagues), €99/month (Growth, 30 leagues), and €249/month (Pro, 120 leagues), with custom Enterprise for all 2,200+ competitions. Every paid Sportmonks plan includes a 14-day free trial (a credit card is required to activate it). The real comparison is total cost: factor the time spent working around missing stats and unsupported failures into the cheaper option before deciding.
Choose API-Football if you are prototyping, your budget is near zero, and you can live with daily request caps and community support.
Choose Sportmonks if you are shipping a product to real users and need dependable data, consistent stats, and someone to call when it matters.
At entry, yes. API-Football has a free tier and a ~$19/month plan; Sportmonks starts at €29/month. The gap narrows once you account for Sportmonks' consistent stats coverage, human support, and reliability, which reduce engineering and incident costs in production.
It can work for low-traffic or non-critical apps, but it does not publish uptime, depends on RapidAPI, and has known stats-coverage gaps. For production apps where data downtime affects users, a provider with published reliability and human support is the safer choice.
Coverage varies by league and plan. Sportmonks includes xG, Pressure Index, and predictions as standard proprietary data.
Usually a few days. You swap the base URL and auth token, remap endpoints, and replace chained calls with Sportmonks' includes. The self-serve trial lets you run both in parallel and compare responses before cutting over.
Sign up, get your API token, and make your first football API call in the same session. No sales call, no procurement.
14-day free trial · Cancel any time