API Operational
<20ms globally
300+ edge locations
Our story

We built the API
we always wanted.

We're developers who have spent years integrating exchange rate data into applications — fintech dashboards, e-commerce platforms, accounting tools, travel apps. And every time, we hit the same wall.

Existing APIs were expensive, opaque, and slow. Popular providers charged $50–$200/month before you could access hourly rates. Free tiers were so restricted they were nearly useless in production. Data sources were undisclosed. "Global" endpoints were actually single-region with a CDN bolted on.

So we built xchangr8 from scratch on Cloudflare Workers — a globally distributed compute platform with 300+ edge locations. Rate data is sourced openly from the European Central Bank and the US Federal Reserve's FRED database. We publish exactly where our numbers come from. No black box.

The free tier gives you 10,000 requests per month — enough to build something real, test it properly, and decide if you want to scale. No credit card, no trial expiry, no bait-and-switch. We want to earn your upgrade.

What we were frustrated with
  • ✕ Opaque data sourcing — no disclosure of where rates came from
  • ✕ Single-region "global" APIs with 200ms+ response times
  • ✕ Free tiers locked to EUR base only — unusable for JPY-first apps
  • ✕ Paying $100/month just for hourly updates and 1-year history
  • ✕ No webhook support — polling was the only option

Our values

Principles we don't compromise on

Three things guide every product and infrastructure decision we make.

Transparent by default
We publish exactly where our rate data comes from — ECB eurofxref and FRED DEXJPUS. When a source is delayed, we say so in the response. When we change something, we changelog it. No black boxes, ever.
Developer-first
10,000 free requests with any base currency, full error codes in every response, sandbox keys for local testing, and a consistent API shape across all tiers. The same /v1/latest call works identically on Free and Enterprise.
Globally fast
Cloudflare edge means your users in Tokyo get the same sub-20ms response as users in London or São Paulo. We don't route everything through a US data centre and call it "global" — our API literally runs at the network edge closest to your caller.

By the numbers

Built to scale from day one

31
Currencies covered
300+
Edge locations
<20ms
Avg response time
10k
Free req / month

Technology

Built on the best infrastructure

We chose every component deliberately. Here's what runs under the hood.

Cloudflare Workers

Every API request is handled by a V8 isolate at the Cloudflare edge closest to the caller. No cold starts, no single-region bottleneck, sub-millisecond compute latency. The same runtime powers the world's largest CDN.

Compute

Cloudflare D1 + KV

Historical rate data lives in D1 (SQLite at the edge), queryable with standard SQL. Latest rates are cached in KV for sub-millisecond hot reads. Two storage layers, zero operational overhead on our side.

Storage

European Central Bank

The ECB publishes the eurofxref reference dataset every business day at ~15:00 CET. We ingest it within minutes of publication. Official rates, no middleman markup, published under open data terms since 1999.

Data source

US Federal Reserve FRED

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis FRED database is our second official source — specifically DEXJPUS and related series. Cross-checking ECB against FRED gives us a consistency layer that catches outliers before they reach your app.

Data source

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