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Yelp

Yelp API

Local Business Reviews / Local Discovery & Advertising Platform · yelp.com

A public REST and GraphQL API at docs.developer.yelp.com spans search, business details, reviews, ads, and insights. Keys are self serve, but after a 30 day trial pricing starts at $229 per month and reviews return at most 7 excerpts. In 2024 Yelp cut free access on days of notice.

Last verified: July 2026Marketing & Sales
API GRADE
B+
VERIFIED JUL 2026

SCORECARD

ExistenceGOODPublic Fusion and Places REST endpoints plus a GraphQL alternative, documented at docs.developer.yelp.com.
AccessGOODSelf serve keys with a 30 day, 5,000 call trial; after that it is paid only, from $229 per month.
CoverageGOODSearch, details, match, autocomplete, transactions, ads, and insights; reviews cap at 3 to 7 excerpts.
AuthGOODAPI key passed as a Bearer token; simple and documented.
Docs & DXGOODA full developer portal covering five product families with per plan limits documented.
StabilityPOORYelp ended free Fusion API access in July 2024 with as little as 4 days notice, and several dependent apps shut down.
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Supergood: Yelp shipped a real API. Most vendors don't; we ship near-native APIs for the rest.

Frequently asked questions

Yelp scores B+ on the API Report Card. A public REST and GraphQL API at docs.developer.yelp.com spans search, business details, reviews, ads, and insights. Keys are self serve, but after a 30 day trial pricing starts at $229 per month and reviews return at most 7 excerpts. In 2024 Yelp cut free access on days of notice.

Tried to integrate with Yelp?
SOURCES
Reviews endpoint caps output at 3 review excerpts (default / Base/Plus plans) or 7 (Enterprise/Premium plans), full review content is not available via API, which has been a top-voted GitHub issue since 2017 github.com ↗
Review excerpts are truncated to 160 characters by default, further limiting downstream usefulness for reputation-management tools docs.developer.yelp.com ↗
In July 2024 Yelp ended free Fusion API access for many long-tenured developers with as little as 4 days notice, forcing migration to paid plans starting at $229/month techcrunch.com ↗
The new paid pricing was widely criticized as opaque and dramatically more expensive than competing places APIs (Google Places, Foursquare), with a developer who averaged <100 calls/day facing a $229/month minimum observationalhazard.com ↗
Multiple indie developers shuttered their Yelp-dependent apps in 2024 in response to the pricing change, even after Yelp extended a 90-day grace period and issued an apology techcrunch.com ↗
Yelp's ToS explicitly prohibits 'robot, spider, search/retrieval application, or other automated device' use against the site, prohibits resale of content, and prohibits republishing scraped reviews terms.yelp.com ↗
Insights API has no display rights, partners can use Yelp data internally but cannot show it to end users, which materially restricts the use cases for SaaS integrators docs.developer.yelp.com ↗
QPS rate limiting enforced via HTTP 429 TOO_MANY_REQUESTS_PER_SECOND and a daily limit (300/day on trial Starter, 5,000/day on paid plans), with overages billed in 1,000-call increments docs.developer.yelp.com ↗
No bulk historical-reviews export available via the standard Fusion/Places API, enterprise bulk data requires negotiating a separate data-licensing contract with Yelp Data business.yelp.com ↗
Photos endpoint capped at 3 (Enhanced) or 12 (Premium) photos per business, limiting display use cases for partner apps business.yelp.com ↗
GraphQL and REST APIs share the same underlying rate limits and content caps, switching interface doesn't unlock additional data yelp.com ↗
Historic 2019 transition from free to paid plans, followed by 2024 sudden enforcement, has created a pattern of trust erosion in the developer community appdevelopermagazine.com ↗
Long-running business-owner allegations that Yelp's review-filter algorithm hides legitimate positive reviews unless the business advertises (the 'extortion' narrative); subject of multiple class-action lawsuits en.wikipedia.org ↗
Aggressive sales calls from Yelp ad reps repeatedly cited by SMB owners as a top complaint trustpilot.com ↗
Difficulty getting fake / retaliatory / competitor-posted negative reviews removed trustpilot.com ↗
Ad spend often produces low-quality or unqualified leads relative to cost, per SMB reviews g2.com ↗
Yelp's consumer traffic and discovery share has been eroded by Google Maps / Google Business Profile, reducing ROI of the platform for advertisers techcrunch.com ↗
Restaurants, Retail & Other (RR&O) advertising revenue declined 5% YoY in Q2 2025, reflecting weakening advertiser demand in the historically core restaurant segment sec.gov ↗
Yelp settled a $323M FTC complaint historically and faces ongoing scrutiny over review-manipulation claims and the line between editorial and paid placement en.wikipedia.org ↗
Mobile and web UI has been criticized for ad density and degraded organic discovery in favor of sponsored placements trustpilot.com ↗
Request-a-Quote leads frequently complained about by service-business owners as spam or non-converting g2.com ↗
Limited international footprint outside the US, Canada, UK, and a handful of European markets sec.gov ↗
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