Honest comparison · updated 2026
An API-Football alternative with more at the same $19
API-Football is a deep, affordable football API with broad league coverage and a $19/month entry plan. At that same $19, Big Balls Sports Data Solo includes 10,000 requests a day instead of 7,500, plus pre-assembled matchups, Elo predictions, value props, and trending data for one selected sport. API-Football remains the better fit when the widest possible football league catalog is the priority. For a supported sport where you want more capacity and more product-ready intelligence at the same price, Solo is the stronger offer.
API-Football Pro and Big Balls Solo both start at $19. Solo includes 10,000 requests a day, 33% more than API-Football Pro, and adds assembled matchups plus an intelligence layer for the selected sport.
What you would pay at your scale vs API-Football
7,500 upstream requests/day after your own caching. For per-sport products, the model distributes that traffic evenly across selected sports.
Big Balls Sports Data
$19/mo
Solo plan · 1 selected sport
API-Football
$19/mo
Pro
Save $0/mo($0/yr)
AND skip building the assembly layer.
- One key across every sport (each API-Sports sport is a separate subscription)
- Pre-assembled matchup responses
- A transparent Elo prediction model
- Confidence and freshness metadata on every field
Comparison basis
Both prices use the same 7,500 upstream requests/day. Extra API-Football endpoint calls are not added because the exact fan-out depends on what you build.
Raw API-Football pricing covers the data subscription only. The assembly layer, intelligence features, and cross-sport unification are engineering time you build and maintain.
API-Football price = raw data subscription only. Assembly layer, intelligence features, and cross-sport unification are not included at any tier. Pricing verified 2026-10-04. Football product of the API-Sports family, billed as a separate per-sport subscription with per-DAY request caps that reset at UTC midnight. All endpoints on every tier; tiers differ on volume and historical range. View the official source.
What you can build
Real things that are one request here, and a stitching job on API-Football.
One schema as you grow
Solo covers one selected sport. Higher plans add sports without forcing a second API family, schema, or integration.
More room at the same $19
10,000 requests a day on Solo versus 7,500 on API-Football Pro, with both plans publicly priced at $19 a month.
Pre-assembled matchups
A full matchup in one call instead of joining fixtures, odds, lineups, and stats yourself.
Elo predictions UI
Win probabilities and tournament progression ready to render.
World Cup 2026 hub
Standings, Elo predictions, and live odds.
Confidence-aware rendering
Every field carries quality and freshness so your UI can flag unconfirmed data.
One call that closes the gap
A live request against the gateway that returns something you would have to stitch together, or could not get at all, on API-Football.
curl -H "x-api-key: YOUR_KEY" \
"https://api.bigballsdata.com/v1/nba/games/GAME_ID/matchup"Runs on the free tier — 250 requests/day, 500 with GitHub. No card.
Endpoint by endpoint
Every row is a Big Balls endpoint. The API-Football column shows whether you can get the same thing there. Rows without a plan badge run on the free tier.
API-Football capabilities last checked against their public docs on 2026-10-04. Competitor features change — verify against their current docs before relying on this. View the official source.
One key across every sport
per-sport subscription (football, basketball… separate)Full matchup in one call
GET /v1/matches/:idassemble from fixtures + sub-endpointsFree-tier request volume
100 req/day free vs our 250 (500 with GitHub)Paid entry-tier daily volume
7,500/day on $19 Pro vs our 10,000/day on $19 SoloPre-match and in-play odds
Edge plan and upGET /v1/matches/:id/oddsfootball, within the football productConfirmed lineups and injuries
football; uneven outside top-5 leaguesElo predictions and win probability
Solo plan and upGET /v1/predictionsa predictions endpoint exists; no transparent Elo modelNFL play-by-play with EPA
GET /v1/nfl/games/:id/playsseparate American-football product if at allPlayer-prop value finder with hit rates
Solo plan and upGET /v1/intelligence/value-propsNot on API-FootballConfidence and freshness metadata per field
Not on API-Football
Pricing, side by side
| Big Balls Sports Data | API-Football | |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | 250 req/day, 500 with GitHub | 100 requests per day |
| Entry paid | Solo $19/mo, 10,000 req/day | Pro $19/mo, 7,500 req/day (football only) |
| Pricing model | Solo covers 1 selected sport; higher plans expand under the same schema | Football subscription; other API-Sports products are separate |
| Scope for the price | Selected sport plus assembled matchups, value props, trending, and Elo | Football-deep raw endpoints plus its prediction endpoint |
Burst limits, on every plan
Per-minute burst is what decides whether a page that fans out into several calls renders or throttles. Here is the whole ladder, daily cap included, so you can compare it against what API-Football publishes — we state ours and leave theirs to their own page, which is the only copy either of us can keep current.
| Plan | Per minute | Per day |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 100 | 250 |
| Solo | 300 | 10,000 |
| Trio | 500 | 25,000 |
| Edge | 1,500 | 100,000 |
| Pro | 3,000 | 200,000 |
Requests are counted one for one — no credit weighting, no markets-times-regions arithmetic — so the number in this table is the number of calls you can make. How rate limiting works →
Start on the free tier
100 requests per minute and 250 per day, free — the highest per-minute burst of any free sports API we checked. Burst is what matters when something asks several questions in a row and waits on each answer.
- Every sport and league we cover — the paid tiers add history depth and premium fields, not more leagues.
- Calls are counted one for one — no credit weighting, no markets-times-regions arithmetic.
- Link GitHub and the daily cap goes to 500.
- No credit card.
Or ask your AI tool directly
Connect your account to Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Perplexity or any other MCP-compatible tool and ask for the whole API in conversation — scores, standings, player stats and Elo ratings, with no API key to paste and no code to write. Your plan and limits carry over exactly as they do here.
Connect your AI tool →Big Balls Sports Data is best for
- ●Apps spanning more than football that want one key and one schema
- ●Products where a daily cap failing mid-match-day is unacceptable
- ●Teams that want odds, predictions, and stats in one envelope
- ●Anyone who wants confidence and freshness metadata on every field
API-Football is best for
- ●Football-only products that need the widest possible league list (1,236 leagues)
- ●Budget-first MVPs that can live with a 100/day free cap and daily paid caps
- ●Teams already integrated against the API-Sports football schema
Frequently asked
- How is this different from your API-Sports comparison?
- API-Football is API-Sports’ football product. This page is about the football API specifically, its 100/day free cap, per-sport billing, and daily limits. For the broader multi-sport API-Sports family, see our API-Sports alternative page. If you use several API-Sports products, that comparison is the more complete one.
- Is Big Balls Sports Data cheaper than API-Football?
- At entry level, it is more value at the same price. API-Football Pro and Big Balls Solo are both $19/month, but Solo includes 10,000 requests a day versus 7,500, plus pre-assembled matchups, Elo predictions, value props, and trending data for one selected sport. API-Football still wins when its wider football league catalog matters more than those additions.
- How do the same-price quotas compare?
- Both entry plans use daily quotas. Big Balls Solo allows 10,000 requests a day, while API-Football Pro allows 7,500. That is 2,500 additional requests a day, or 33% more capacity, at the same $19 monthly price.
- How does coverage compare outside the top leagues?
- API-Football has the widest league list in the market, but data depth (lineups, xG, player stats) is uneven outside the top-five European leagues. We cover fewer total leagues with more consistent depth, plus every non-football sport under the same schema.
Pull these sports from Big Balls Sports Data
One canonical schema, one key. Explore the API for each:
Or go straight to a league:
Compare Big Balls Sports Data vs other providers
Evaluating more than one? Here is how we stack up against the rest, plus a calculator to price any of them at your scale.
Check the betting math
Use the free calculators to verify conversion, margin, stake allocation, and bankroll math before choosing an odds feed.
Try it yourself
API key in 30 seconds. 250 req/day free (500 with GitHub), no credit card. Compare the actual experience, not just the spec sheet.