SpotHero API
SpotHero runs a partner-gated REST API at api.spothero.com/v2 with public docs but no self-serve onboarding. Credentials require emailing partner support with company details and projected volume. Rate limits, webhook schemas, and OAuth scopes are negotiated privately, not published.
Frequently asked questions
SpotHero scores A on the API Report Card. SpotHero runs a partner-gated REST API at api.spothero.com/v2 with public docs but no self-serve onboarding. Credentials require emailing partner support with company details and projected volume. Rate limits, webhook schemas, and OAuth scopes are negotiated privately, not published.
SpotHero has a workable official integration path. Most engineering teams can build against it directly. Open API: self-serve, documented, with SDKs
SpotHero is a Chicago-based consumer parking reservation marketplace founded in 2011 by Mark Lawrence, Jeremy Smith, and Larry Kiss that lets drivers pre-book hourly, daily, monthly, event, and airport parking at thousands of garages, lots, and valets across North America.
Fleet/Trucking/Logistics, specifically consumer mobility / parking-as-a-service, sitting between drivers and parking operators. Consumers search a destination + date/time on spothero.com or the SpotHero iOS/Android app (or Apple CarPlay), compare rates across nearby garages, prepay via credit card or Apple/Google Pay, and receive a mobile parking pass (QR code, license-plate read, or drive-up code) used at the garage gate.
Very high in U.S. consumer pre-booked parking, the category leader.
SpotHero sits on the transactional, supply-side, and distribution-layer data for the largest U.S. consumer parking marketplace: facility metadata for 13,000+ garages, lots, valets, and airport facilities (geo coordinates, entrances, photos, amenities, vehicle restrictions, height/oversize rules, shuttle metadata for airports), per-facility rate cards (hourly, daily, monthly, event-pricing with Offsets and Tiers, Flex Rates dynamic pricing overlays driven by sports/concert/airport demand), real-time capacity and utilization signals, every consumer reservation (vehicle, license plate, payment method, mobile pass/QR, contact data, event association), payouts and reconciliation against the ~35% SpotHero take, dispute and refund/credit history (including the recurring 'credit instead of cash refund' patterns called out by BBB and Trustpilot), and B2B distribution telemetry from Apple Maps, Google Maps, automotive partners, venue partners (MSG, Oracle Park, SoFi Stadium), employer commuter-benefit programs, and, post-close, Uber.
Mature, modern, in a major M&A transition. SpotHero launched in 2011 in Chicago, raised $118M across 8 rounds (incl.
No self-serve API onboarding, credentials require emailing partner.support@spothero.com with company details and projected monthly reservation volume; no published SLA, pricing, or approval criteria. Developer subdomain `developers.spothero.com` 302-redirects to the marketing page `spothero.com/developers`, fragmenting what used to be a standalone developer portal and forcing devs to dig for the actual spec at `api.spothero.com/v2/docs`. Full sourced list under Sources below.
Common alternatives include ParkWhiz / Arrive, ParkMobile, ParkHub, Flash (formerly FlashParking), Premium Parking, JustPark. Graded alternatives appear under "More from the report card" below.
Grades measure one thing: can a customer's engineering team get their own data out programmatically? We check six things (whether a real API exists, how access is gated, data coverage, auth quality, docs and developer experience, and stability) and roll them into a letter grade. Grades get re-verified, and they only move on evidence.