A CarAPI alternative for users outside the US

CarAPI is the default many developers reach for, and for good reason: it's simple, documented and cheap. Its pricing page (read on November 10, 2026) lists three yearly plans:

Plan	Price	Calls a day	What's in it
Base	$199 a year	1,500	Year, make, model and submodel, 1900 to 2027
Plus	$249 a year	3,000	The same, more calls
Premium	$299 a year	6,000	Adds trims and specs (1990 to 2027), VIN decoding, OBD-II codes

Over the limit you can opt in to soft rate limiting at $0.001 a call; otherwise you get HTTP 429. The plan cards and the comparison table on that page disagree on which plans include trims and VIN decoding, so confirm with CarAPI before you buy. And one line on the page sets its scope: the API "returns vehicle data for cars sold in the United States since 1900."

That's the reason most people look for an alternative.

When CarAPI is the right call

We'd rather say this up front:

• Your users are in the US and buy cars sold in the US.
• You need trims and specs (engine, body, mileage, colours) per model year.
• You need US VIN decoding in the same API.

For that job, $299 a year is hard to beat, and we don't sell trims or specs at all.

When it isn't

• Your users are outside the US. A Spanish garage's booking form needs the Dacia Sandero, the SEAT Ibiza and the Renault Clio; a New Zealand invoicing app needs the cars New Zealand imports. A list of cars sold in the US misses many of them, or shows US-only models no one in that market drives.
• You need more than cars. CarAPI sells motorcycles as a separate Powersports API. If you also list vans, trucks or buses, you'll be stitching sources.
• You want to keep the data. CarAPI's plans are API calls per day. If you'd rather take the whole list as a file, store it in your own database and ship it, you need a licence that says you may.

What VehiclesDB does instead

VehiclesDB is a make and model catalog built from the official vehicle registers of these countries: Germany's KBA, the Netherlands' RDW, Spain's DGT, the UK's DfT, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Thailand, Ukraine and more. Cars, motorcycles, mopeds, vans, trucks and buses share one id scheme.

What a model looks like, for example the Toyota Corolla:

• its canonical id (car/toyota/corolla), stable across renames, with the old ids kept in former_ids;
• its body type (hatchback) and kind (car);
• the countries where the registers have it, and its popularity in each, so country=es&order=popular returns what Spain actually drives, most registered first;
• the years on record: the first and last year the registers have it, enough for a year step on a form;
• its aliases, so "Rabbit" still finds the Golf.

The make and model dropdown is that list on your form in one script tag, with logos and search; its requests cost 0 credits. The list itself is free with an account as a file, under CC-BY 4.0, and the API reference documents every call.

Side by side

	CarAPI	VehiclesDB
Coverage	Cars sold in the US since 1900	Official registers of many countries
Vehicle kinds	Cars; powersports as a separate API	Cars, motorcycles, mopeds, vans, trucks, buses
Years	Model years, 1900 to 2027	Registration years on record
Trims and specs	Yes, from 1990 (Premium)	No (generations, engines and trims coming)
VIN decoding	Premium	No
Popularity per country	No	Yes
Price	$199 to $299 a year	Make and model calls 0 credits; list free
The list as a file	API only	Free with an account, CC-BY 4.0, credit required

Using both

They aren't exclusive. Some teams use our list for the make and model step, filtered to the user's country, and a spec vendor like CarAPI behind it for US trims. The vehicle data provider comparison lists the other options, with prices.