Non-profits, education and research

There is no non-profit tier and no education plan. We have not built one, and this page is not a hidden application form for one. What exists is an address, a person who reads it, and a decision made case by case.

The reason is not meanness, it is that a published tier turns into an entitlement. People arrive arguing that they qualify, every refusal becomes a negotiation about whether a cause is charitable enough, and the answer ends up being decided by whoever writes the most persuasive email rather than by what the data is actually for. Keeping it as a request means we can say yes generously and say no without a dispute.

We do say yes. Fairly often, and for the whole thing rather than a hobbled version of it. But it is a gift each time, not a rate, and nothing on this page is a promise.

What to tell us

Write in your own words. There is no form and no format, but the four things below are what we will be trying to work out, so saying them directly saves a round of email.

Worth putting in the first message

  1. Who you are. The organisation, the institution, or just you. A link is usually faster than a description.
  2. What you need from the data. Which countries, how far back or forward, and whether you need the API or a one-off extract. "All of it" is a fine answer if it is the true one.
  3. What difference it makes to what you are doing. Not a pitch — we are asking whether this unblocks something real or is a convenience. Both are legitimate answers and they lead to different offers.
  4. If you are researching: what the research is, and where it is intended to be published. We care about that last part, because work that ends up behind a paywall nobody in the field can reach is a different proposition from work that does not.

If you are teaching with it, tell us roughly how many students and whether they need their own keys. That one is nearly always a yes.

What we will not ask you for

Charity registration numbers, proof of status, a budget, or a case for why you deserve it. If we need something we will ask, and if the answer is no you will get a plain no rather than silence.

Write to us   See the commercial pricing

Commercial pricing is on the pricing page and is unaffected by any of this. If you are a company, that is the page you want.