Hello,
I am working with a group an a project in a class called Operations Research being taught at the University of Iceland. I applied for access to your API some time ago, but was answered with a prompt for my CC info. The tutor of the class found that very strange so I intended to show him the pricing plan I got for you when I met him next. When I got to him the offer had expired so I couldn’t show him. According to him I should not have to pay anything for access to your API since this is only for a student project, and nothing on a large scale at that. I sent another request some time later but I haven’t heard anything back from you. Is it possible for you to review that and let me and my group continue with our project?
Best regards,
Úlfar Arinbjarnar
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Hello, mashape requires a credit card regardless of pricing structure. There is no way to create a mashape account without one, at least the last time I checked. The custom academic plan allows for 5,000 requests daily for free. If your project isn’t large scale, you should be able to stay within these limits.
Please be aware that the “Complex Recipe Search” endpoint counts as at least 3 requests, but will count as more if you set addRecipeInformation to true (+0.5 requests for every recipe returned). The endpoint “Get Random Recipes” also counts as 1 request per recipe. You can always see how many requests you have used by evaluating the mashape response header after each call. The response header will show you:
X-Ratelimit-Classifications-Limit: X
X-Ratelimit-Classifications-Remaining: X
X-Ratelimit-Requests-Limit: X
X-Ratelimit-Requests-Remaining: X
X-Ratelimit-Tinyrequests-Limit: X
X-Ratelimit-Tinyrequests-Remaining: X
We simply do not allow for unlimited free requests as this could easily be abused. I hope this helps explain the matter. You should still be able to accept the original invitation if you would like to use the API after all - please send us an email and we can try to help with that.