OpenAlex

New Features and Usage-Based Pricing

Today we’re adding some features to the OpenAlex API: better search, content download, and new docs. Most importantly, we’re also introducing usage-based pricing.

New features

Advanced search at last

We’ve had lots of request for advanced search features to support systematic reviews. Good news: they’re here!

  • Proximity search: find terms near each other
  • Exact matching: skip stemming when you need precision
  • Wildcards: for when you’re not sure of the exact form
  • Lonnnnng queries: Searches can be up to several pages in length (8kb)

Find details and examples of advanced search in the new developer docs here.

Note for developers: the old filter syntax for search is now deprecated; the ?search= parameter approach remains. It’ll be the One Way To Do It moving forward. Filter searches will redirect to the ?search param.

Semantic search

We’re also launching semantic search. Instead of just matching keywords, it uses embeddings to match the meaning of your search–so a search for “kelp biomechanics” also finds articles about algae and wave mechanics. But you don’t have to stop there: you can even paste a whole abstract into the search bar to find related papers!

Semantic search is in beta; we don’t recommend using it for sensitive production workflows yet. But we would love to hear your feedback! If it’s well-used we’ll continue to invest more resources into it.

Full-text downloads

We’re hosting PDFs and TEI XML for our 60M open-access works. You can search and filter for works of interest, filter to get just ones with PDFs, and then download the PDFs in bulk—all with the API. Or you can use our new OpenAlex CLI to do it from the command line, massively parallelized, in a single command. Or your agent can—they love CLIs.

openalex download \ 
  --api-key YOUR_KEY \ 
  --output ./climate-pdfs \ 
  --filter "topics.id:T10325,has_content.pdf:true" \ 
  --content pdf

See the full-text documentation for details.

New docs

We’ve completely rebuilt our documentation. The old docs are deprecated and will redirect soon. The new docs are clearer, cleaner, up to date, and AI-optimized. We want to make OpenAlex as easy as possible to use for everyone, whether they’re an expert or a novice vibe-coding their first app.

API keys are now required.

As we announced in January, you’ll need an API key for all requests. Getting one is free and takes about 30 seconds: create an account at openalex.org, then grab your key at openalex.org/settings/api. You can still make a few calls without an API key for demo purposes, but it’s not suitable for any kind of production use. The API keys are essential for our new usage-based pricing model. What’s a usage-based pricing model? Gentle Reader, a mere centimeter now separates you from the answer. 👇

Usage-based pricing

Different API operations cost us different amounts to run. Doing stuff with PDFs is expensive, but looking up a single work by ID is nearly free. We think it’s essential that our pricing reflects these actual costs. Usage-based pricing is a natural fit for this: it’s transparent, sustainable, and fair.

Here’s what things cost. See the developer docs for more details.

endpointcost per callcost per 1,000 calls
single work lookup by DOI or ID00
list and filter$0.0001$0.10
search$0.001$1.00
PDF/XML download$0.01$10.00

Free usage

Every API key gets $1 of free usage per day. We’ve always subsidized free users using revenue from paying ones–this makes the exact extent of that subsidy clear, transparent, and unambiguous.

What does that daily dollar get you? Assuming you return 100 works per request:

endpointdaily free callsdaily free results
single work lookup by DOI or IDunlimited unlimited
list and filter10,0001,000,000
search1,000100,000
PDF/XML download100100

To use a real-world example: grabbing all 694k works by Finnish authors takes about 7k paginated requests at $0.10 per thousand or $0.70. That’s covered by your free daily allowance. But if you want all 9 million works from Japan, that will cost about $9. (You could even download all 480M works in OpenAlex this way for $480—but don’t do that lol, download the full dataset instead, it’s free).

It’s easy to track your usage: every API response includes headers showing how much you’ve spent and how much you’ve got left. You can also check openalex.org/settings/usage anytime.

Prepaid usage

Most users will find that the free plan covers all their needs. However, for some projects, you may need more usage. The great thing about usage-based pricing is that most of the time this will only cost you a few bucks. You’re just paying for what you need. You can buy prepaid usage in 1min with your credit card, whenever you want, however much you want. It supplements your daily free allowance.

Organizational plans

Organizations also buy prepaid usage. But many will want to get annual plans instead, which offer major discounts, data sync, curation dashboards, and more. Check out our new Member, Member+, and Supporter plans for more details.

FAQ

I thought it was free? The data remains free. The full OpenAlex dataset—all 480M works, all the metadata—is free to download, share, remix, and build on. We’re committed to keeping it sustainably free by charging for a service (the API) built on that dataset. Free data, paid service–this is the path laid out in the POSI principles, which we’ve signed and enthusiastically support. 

How do I track my usage? Every API response includes usage info; you can also call the rate-limit endpoint or check your usage page on openalex.org. Learn more here. 

How is my usage data used? We analyze usage data to improve the overall service and we provide institutions aggregated usage summaries for their institutions upon request. We only collect what we need to run OpenAlex. We aren’t building tools to monitor individuals and we don’t sell your data. You can read our full privacy policy here.

Why charge per request instead of per result? We’re trying to link our costs to our pricing, and our costs mostly scale with requests, not results; a search that returns 10 results costs us about the same as one that returns 10,000.

Will prices change?

Yes, probably. The point of this model is to keep our prices tightly linked to our costs, and our costs will likely change with new tech, new use cases, and new data.

Where from here?

AI accelerates every day. The future of knowledge is getting rebuilt, right now. If we build on checkerboards of enclosed, walled gardens, we build a fragmented, incoherent future for scholarship and humanity.

We think OpenAlex can help with that. We’re gathering and connecting the literature into a cohesive living library, complete and organized and accessible to everyone. Today’s new pricing model helps us stay in this for the long haul.

An API-based sustainability model lets us deliver (and monetize) value in the post-GUI era. Soon, users won’t go to openalex.org (or any SaaS website), they’ll use APIs to vibe-code a custom interface for any question in minutes. [1] The post-GUI world will be tough on some open sustainability models. But it’s also an amazing opportunity for open infrastructure, if we adapt our pricing model correctly. That’s what we’re doing today.

We’re so very excited about this next chapter. Questions? Hit us up at support@openalex.org.

Let’s build!

[1] Check out our Q1 town hall for more on our post-GUI strategy, and check out this vibe-coding webinar to see several real-life examples of building five-minute custom OpenAlex dashboards.

OpenAlex rewrite (“Walden”) launch!

Today, OpenAlex gets a new engine.

After a year of rebuilding, refactoring, and retesting, the Walden rewrite is now live — powering all of OpenAlex. It’s the same dataset shape you know, but faster, cleaner, and more complete.

You’ll notice better references, better OA detection, better language and license coverage, better everything. We’ve added 190 million new works, including datasets, software, and other research objects from DataCite and thousands of repositories. And thanks to our new foundation, fixes and improvements now roll out in days, not months.

Want to see exactly what changed? Check out OREO — the OpenAlex Rewrite Evaluation Overview — to compare old vs. new data in detail. [edit Dec 13, 2025: OREO is no longer up because the legacy OpenAlex data is no longer being updated…it’s all Walden now, so there’s no comparator].

And if you’d like to dig into the full list of updates, the Walden release notes have you covered.

For the next few weeks, you can still access the old dataset with data-version=1, and starting tomorrow, you can download full snapshots of both the legacy and Walden datasets in the usual way.

The rebuild is done. The road ahead is wide open.

Onward.

OpenAlex rewrite enters beta! 🎉

It’s a big week at OpenAlex. On Monday, we announced that OpenAlex is now our top-level brand (and retired the “OurResearch” name). Yesterday we unveiled our new logo. And today, we’re thrilled to launch the beta release of our fully-rewritten codebase (codenamed Walden)!

Walden is faster, bigger, and more maintainable–that means quicker bug fixes, more content, easier feature development, and a smoother experience all around.

Throughout October, we’ll be running Walden and the old system (Classic) side by side, with Classic remaining the default. On November 1 2025, Walden becomes default, and we’ll publish the last data snapshot from the old system (more info on timelines here).

How to test-drive Walden

Walden beta is already live in the API and UI so you can start exploring it right away!

Just remember that it’s still in beta: there are lots of known issues and it’s changing every day. If you notice an that’s not already in OREO tests or known issues, report it here.

Key improvements

When you check it out, what should you expect to see? The best way to view a list of improvements is to check out the tests in OREO, especially work tests. But here’s a high-level overview:

  • 150M+ new works: Newly indexed articles, books, datasets, software, dissertations, and more! You can explore just the newly added works here.
  • Better consistency: Unpaywall and OpenAlex will now always agree.
  • Better metadata: more citations, more language and retraction coverage, better keywords, more OA data.

Looking Ahead

The last year of rewriting OpenAlex was tough. We couldn’t move as fast as we wanted on new features, and support often lagged. But now we’re equipped to move fast without breaking things. Expect faster improvements, better support, and more ambitious features dropping in Q4, including:

  • Community curation: fix mistakes (like in Wikipedia) and see them reflected in days.
  • Vector search endpoint: find relevant works and other entities based on semantic similarity of free-form text
  • Download endpoint: Access PDF text from DOI or OpenAlex ID
  • Better funding metadata: New grants entity with better coverage of grant objects and linkages to research outputs and funders

This is a turning point for OpenAlex—and we’re excited to build the future of research infrastructure together with you. The engine’s rebuilt. The road ahead is wide open. Let’s go.

PS want to learn more about Walden? Come to our webinar Oct 7th at 10am Eastern. You can register to attend here.

A New Logo for OpenAlex

This is a big week for OpenAlex: yesterday we reorganized under the OpenAlex brand, and tomorrow we launch our completely rewritten codebase (beta). Today we launch our new logo!

The old logo was unique and conveyed the idea of building, which we loved. But was also visually complex, almost Escheresque; consequently, it didn’t scale down well, and it failed to convey the directness, boldness, and simplicity of our vision: to create a universal, open library of scholarly information.

So as we start a new chapter in OpenAlex, it’s a great time to also launch a new look.

You Bring the Color

We’re doubling down on black and white. That’s not just a design choice, it’s a statement of philosophy. OpenAlex is infrastructure. We’re the pipes under the city, not the flashy towers above it. We want to stay out of your way and let your projects, your creativity, your insights provide the color. You’ll see this commitment carry through in our website, which now leans harder into that clean, monochrome look.

A New Typeface

We’ve switched to Inter. Of course it’s open, just like us. Inter is modern and businesslike, but still human, readable, and approachable. Compared to Dosis (our old font), Inter is sharper, more confident, and more professional—while keeping the sense of openness that’s core to who we are. You’ll see Inter across our site from now on.

The Icon

The new icon is simple: a single, continuously curved outline forms three joined dots. Individually, dots are just dots—but when you connect them, something new emerges:

  • It’s an A for Alex—but sans crossbar, offering an open doorway in.
  • It’s a connected network—could be works and citations, coauthorships, or any of the billions of nodes and edges in the OpenAlex graph.
  • It’s a simplified water molecule.

Why Water?

Water has increasingly become part of our story of what OpenAlex is. Water’s simple but essential. We count on shared infrastructure to deliver it, quietly and reliably, cheaply, but not for free.

At OpenAlex we want to be the pipes under the scholarly city: infrastructure that delivers research information wherever it’s needed, at scale, for cheap. We’re here to support all the amazing things the research ecosystem is doing—quietly, reliably, and everywhere.

A Modern Library of Alexandria

The original Library of Alexandria aimed to collect all scholarly knowledge. OpenAlex means to carry that spirit forward in the digital age: building an open, connected, comprehensive graph of the world’s research.

Our new logo—an open A, a network, a molecule of water—is our way of putting that vision front and center. And if you see a pyramid in this logo, it’s not an accident, it’s homage.

The new logo is a reminder of what we’re building: a simple, open, essential infrastructure for the world’s research information: cheap, reliable, everywhere. That’s OpenAlex.

PS for logo nerds, other inspo: Vercel, the Banner of Peace, and iconic Paul Rand banger Westinghouse.

We’re now OpenAlex

For years, we’ve been working under the name OurResearch. That name sat at the top of our org chart, with three child projects under it: OpenAlex, Unpaywall, and Unsub.

Starting today, things are simpler: that org chart now has just one parent—OpenAlex—with Unpaywall and Unsub beneath it.

Why the change? Three reasons:

1. Fewer brands is clearer

We’re a tiny team, and having so many brands has always been confusing. People wondered: are we OurResearch (or Our Research), or OpenAlex, or Unpaywall, or something else? From now on, the answer is simple: we’re OpenAlex.

2. OpenAlex is what we do

More and more, OpenAlex is the center of our work. It’s our biggest project and the one that takes most of our time. And it’s also the data engine behind our other projects: Unpaywall and Unsub both run on OpenAlex data. In fact, with the launch of our fully rewritten OpenAlex codebase (codenamed Walden) this week, Unpaywall runs as a subroutine of the OpenAlex codebase.

So in a real sense, Unpaywall and Unsub are just friendly wrappers around OpenAlex. Improving OpenAlex improves them automatically.

And the name OpenAlex, with its homage to the ancient Library of Alexandria, captures our long-term vision to gather, organize, and make open all scholarly information.

3. New name, new start

Legally, nothing dramatic is happening—our official name has always been Impactstory, Inc., and “OurResearch” was just a DBA. But this moment is more than just a bookkeeping change.

This is a new chapter for us. The past year has been tough: not much visible progress, a lot of repaying technical debt, and a long slog to rewrite our entire codebase. But that rewrite launches (in beta) this week. And with a fresh codebase comes a fresh start: we get to focus harder, move faster, and pour our energy into making OpenAlex as comprehensive, accurate, and open as possible.

So yes, the name change simplifies things. But more importantly, it marks a new focus and a renewed commitment to our vision: building a universal library of scholarship.

And while we’ll continue to support Unpaywall and Unsub for now, we want to be transparent: OpenAlex is the future. As its functionality grows over the next year or two, Unpaywall and Unsub users will be able to meet their use-cases directly via OpenAlex. The rising tide of OpenAlex lifts all boats.

This week is about OpenAlex

This post is the first of three announcements:

  • Monday: our name change to OpenAlex (that’s today).
  • Tuesday: our new logo.
  • Wednesday: the beta launch our fully rewritten OpenAlex codebase.

When we say we’re focusing on OpenAlex, it’s not just words—we’re shipping, this week. And there’s more coming in Q4:

  • A new API endpoint to directly download PDFs and parsed PDFs.
  • A self-serve curation portal (think Wikipedia editing, but for scholarly metadata), where your changes go live in a day or two.
  • A new vector search API.
  • Improved funder coverage, thanks to our new Wellcome Trust grant.

After a year of rebuilding, we’ve finally got the tools and the focus we need start delivering more substantively on our vision: a universal, open library of scholarly information. We’re energized. We’re ready. We’re OpenAlex.

We’re Rebuilding OpenAlex While It’s Running — Here’s What’s Changing

TLDR: Over the next five months we’re migrating OpenAlex to a new, better codebase; our schema won’t change, but some data (5%) will, and we’ll add over 50 million new works.

Why the change

OpenAlex was written in a big hurry, to fill the gap left when Microsoft Academic Graph disappeared. The code was rushed and hacky, and it shows:

  • Unpaywall and OpenAlex are awkwardly integrated and sometimes disagree.
  • Fixing bugs and adding features takes forever.
  • Adding new sources (eg DataCite) and entity types (grants) is nigh impossible.

The solution

We’re merging the codebases of Unpaywall and OpenAlex, and rebuilding everything atop Apache Spark hosted on Databricks. This stack is more modern, maintainable, and much much faster.

What’s changing

Our goal is to fix the code, not change the functionality or data. That said, you’ll inevitably notice some changes, intended and otherwise. It’s like swapping out the engine of your car—while you’re driving. Here’s what will change:

  • 50+ million new works: we’re adding oodles of content from DataCite and institutional repositories, with more coming soon.
  • Unpaywall and OpenAlex will always agree (though they’ll stay separate apps).
  • You can edit our data: users will be able curate mistakes and see the curations applied within days.
  • Lots of small data changes across the whole dataset—for example, some works’ citation counts may grow or shrink, some works will get new OA links, etc. This is impossible to avoid, but our goal is to make sure nothing changes by more than 5%.
  • New topics algo: works created after the migration will use an updated algorithm but deliver similar results using the same taxonomy.
  • New keywords: works will get new keywords from a new algorithm based on our concepts algo.

What’s not changing

  • IDs will stay stable, so if you request a work/author/etc by OpenAlex ID you’ll get the same thing before and after the migration.
  • Functionality will stay the same in the API, web UI, and snapshot. It’ll all work like before.
  • The data schema won’t change.

Timeline

  • June 1: Unpaywall
  • Oct 1: Beta launch
    • Preliminary data from the new codebase can be used in the API by adding the data_version=2 param.
    • Web-based comparison tool launches
    • Beta snapshot of new data is published; you can explore this one.
  • Nov 1: Launch
    • The API and UI serve data from the new codebase by default.
    • Data from the old codebase deprecated but still available by adding in the API by using the data_version=1 param.
    • Prod snapshot of new data is published; you should use this one
  • Dec 1: Completion
    • Data from the old codebase is no longer available in API.
    • Web-based comparison tool retired
    • One last snapshot of the old data is published.

Stay up to date!

The rewrite is nearing release, but it’s still in very active development and we’re learning as we go. Some things might go worse than expected, some better. We’ll be making regular updates via the openalex-users Google Group, so sign up there if you want to stay up to date on everything.

OurResearch receives $7.5M grant from Arcadia to establish OpenAlex, a milestone development for Open Science

OurResearch is proud to announce a $7.5M grant from Arcadia, to establish a sustainable and completely open index of the world’s research ecosystem. With this 5-year grant, OurResearch expands their open science ambitions to replace paywalled knowledge graphs with OpenAlex.

Researchers, funders, and organizations around the world rely on scientific knowledge graphs to find, perform, and manage their research. For decades, only paywalled proprietary systems have provided this information and they have become unaffordable (costing libraries $1B annually); uninclusive (systematically excluding works from some fields and geographies); and unavailable (even paid subscribers are limited in their use of the data).

OpenAlex indexes more than twice as many scholarly works as the leading proprietary products and the entirety of the knowledge graph and its source code are openly licensed and freely available through data snapshots, an easy to use API, and a nascent user interface.

OurResearch has a decade of sustained experience developing tools that advance open science. Funds from Arcadia will fuel the development needed to establish OpenAlex as the go-to scientific knowledge graph for researchers and organizations around the world. Long-term sustainability of OpenAlex will be achieved through value-add premium services.

Development of OpenAlex started only two years ago and it already serves 115M API calls per month; underlies a major university ranking; is displacing proprietary products at Universities; and has established partnerships with national governments. We are excited by these early successes of OpenAlex and its promise to revolutionize scholarly communication and democratize the world’s research.

— — — — 

OurResearch is a nonprofit that builds tools to help accelerate the transition to universal Open Science. Started at a hackathon in 2011, they remain committed to creating open, sustainable research infrastructure that solves real-world problems, like Unpaywall and Unsub.

Arcadia is a charitable foundation that works to protect nature, preserve cultural heritage and promote open access to knowledge. Since 2002 Arcadia has awarded more than $1 billion to organizations around the world.

Coverage in the Financial Times of OpenAlex and the Sorbonne

The Financial Times recently published an article detailing Sorbonne University’s “radical decision” to switch to OpenAlex for its publication database and bibliometric analytics. The article (behind a paywall, unfortunately 😞) came out a little while ago, but we wanted to highlight it here in case you missed it.

The news comes in the context of “a wider pushback against the current model in academic publishing, where researchers publish and review papers for free but have to buy expensive subscriptions to the journals in which they are published to analyse data relating to their work.” It includes a quote from OurResearch/OpenAlex co-founder and CEO Jason Priem: “We felt there’s a mismatch between the values of the academy and the shareholder boardroom. Research is fundamentally about sharing, while for-profits are fundamentally about capturing and enclosing. We aim to create and sustain research infrastructure that’s truly aligned with . . . the values of the research community.”

Exciting times for OpenAlex and open science!

Jack, Andrew. “Sorbonne’s Embrace of Free Research Platform Shakes up Academic Publishing.” Financial Times, December 27, 2023. https://www.ft.com/content/89098b25-78af-4539-ba24-c770cf9ec7c3.

Sorbonne University announces switch to OpenAlex

We at OpenAlex are thrilled at Sorbonne University’s recent announcement that they will be switching to OpenAlex for their publication database and bibliometric analytics, abandoning the use of proprietary products! The Sorbonne, a leading French university, made their announcement in a recent post (click here for the English version; click here for the French version). Starting in 2024, they will be ending their subscription to Web of Science and Clarivate’s bibliometric tools. They will instead be adopting “open, free and participatory tools, and [they are] now working on the consolidation of a sustainable and international alternative, relying in particular on the OpenAlex tool.”

OpenAlex has been working closely with the Sorbonne to make this switch possible, and as they note, “A partnership agreement will shortly be established between Sorbonne University and OpenAlex to formalize their contributions and mutual commitments … and to bring about developments that will meet the needs of its community.” This is an extremely exciting milestone for us and for open science! We invite you all to celebrate with us 🎉🎉🎉!

Assigning Institutions — New England Journal of Medicine Case Study

The New England Journal of Medicine uses a non-standard format when presenting authors and their institutional affiliations, which is a problem when we want to keep track of these links in our data. We developed a custom algorithm to solve this problem, preserving more than a hundred thousand author-institution links.

Linking works, authors, and institutions

Part of a diagram from the OpenAlex docs, showing how authors and institutions are linked to works through authorships.
OpenAlex data has links between works, authors, and institutions.

Works, authors, and institutions are three of the basic entities in the OpenAlex data. Keeping track of the relationships between these entities is one of the core things we do. It’s important that we identify these links correctly, so they can be used for downstream tasks like university research intelligence, ranking, etc. Often, this information comes to us via structured data which is not difficult to ingest. Many times, however, the data is messy, and using it is not so straightforward.

Affiliation data in the New England Journal of Medicine

Publications from the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) are an example of this messiness. Author affiliations in these papers are presented in a format that is human-readable, but not straightforward for a computer to parse automatically. In most other journals, authors are listed alongside their affiliated institutions, and so it is relatively easy for a program to link them together. NEJM does it a different way—as shown in the screenshot of a paper from the journal’s website, institutions are listed together with the initials of the authors, which in turn correspond to the full author names at the top of the paper.

Screenshot of the affiliations of a paper from the New England Journal of Medicine's website.
Author affiliations in NEJM come in a nonstandard format that is not easy for a computer to parse.

We might hope that the structured metadata we get from Crossref would have the data in a more standard format. But alas, this isn’t the case, as shown in the screenshot of data from the Crossref API.

Screenshot of JSON data from the Crossref API
Data about the paper from the Crossref API is also in the nonstandard format.

There are around 170,000 works from this journal. This is a relatively tiny proportion of the total number of works in OpenAlex. However, NEJM is a highly influential journal in medicine, so it’s a priority that we get this right.

Custom OpenAlex solution to assign institutions to NEJM authors

OpenAlex team member Nolan created a bespoke algorithm specifically for NEJM papers to parse the affiliation strings and assign authors to institutions. This rule-based algorithm identifies the author initials that might correspond to the full names, and uses those as a mapping to get the link from institution to author, as shown in the screenshot from the OpenAlex API of the example paper from above. The full data for this work can be found at https://api.openalex.org/works/W4386208393.

We have been able to apply this to around 35,000 articles, amounting to 158,000 institutional affiliations. Additionally, we identified about ten thousand raw affiliation strings that we couldn’t match to an institution, but can still prove useful to our users.

The NEJM case is an example of the attention to data and extra effort that is part of the value that OpenAlex hopes to provide. The data can be messy sometimes. It’s our mission to help make sense of it, so the world can have access to high-quality, free and open data.

Screenshot of JSON data from the OpenAlex API
OpenAlex data has institutional affiliations as structured, fully linked data.