Credits & API Costs
SteamData Connect uses a credit-based quota system. Your monthly plan comes with a fixed number of credits, and each API call or MCP tool invocation consumes credits according to its computational cost.
Why Credits?
Different operations vary significantly in computational load:
- Fetching a single game record is lightweight.
- Batch-fetching hundreds of games, running a complex search, or calling an AI-powered insight endpoint is much more expensive to compute.
Credits let us price each operation fairly rather than treating all calls equally.
Credit Tiers
| Cost | Operations |
|---|---|
| 1 credit | Single-record lookups (game, developer, publisher, tag, demo, category, genre, rank, review) |
| 2 credits | Batch fetches, searches, time-series data, localized name lists |
| 10 credits | AI-powered insights (steam_app_insights_get) |
VPP (Player Persona) tools each declare their own cost via the service's well-known endpoint and are shown below.
REST API Endpoints
| Method | Endpoint | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| GET | /api/v1/apps/{appid} | 1 |
| GET | /api/v1/apps/{appid}/localized | 1 |
| POST | /api/v1/apps/batch | 2 |
| GET | /api/v1/apps/search | 2 |
| GET | /api/v1/apps/list | 2 |
| GET | /api/v1/apps/{appid}/timeseries | 2 |
| GET | /api/v1/apps/{appid}/insights | 10 |
| GET | /api/v1/apps/localized-names | 2 |
| GET | /api/v1/demos/{demoid} | 1 |
| GET | /api/v1/demos/{demoid}/localized | 1 |
| POST | /api/v1/demos/batch | 2 |
| GET | /api/v1/demos/search | 2 |
| GET | /api/v1/demos/list | 2 |
| GET | /api/v1/demos/localized-names | 2 |
| GET | /api/v1/developers/{name} | 1 |
| GET | /api/v1/developers/{name}/apps | 2 |
| GET | /api/v1/developers/{name}/timeseries | 2 |
| GET | /api/v1/developers/search | 2 |
| GET | /api/v1/publishers/{name} | 1 |
| GET | /api/v1/publishers/{name}/apps | 2 |
| GET | /api/v1/publishers/{name}/timeseries | 2 |
| GET | /api/v1/publishers/search | 2 |
| GET | /api/v1/tags/{tagid} | 1 |
| GET | /api/v1/categories/{catid} | 1 |
| GET | /api/v1/genres/{genreid} | 1 |
| GET | /api/v1/ranks | 2 |
| GET | /api/v1/reviews/{appid} | 1 |
| GET | /api/v1/reviews | 2 |
MCP Tools
SteamData Connect exposes the same data through the MCP interface. Each MCP tools/call invocation consumes the equivalent credits.
| MCP Tool | Credits |
|---|---|
steam_app_get | 1 |
steam_app_get_localized | 1 |
steam_app_batch | 2 |
steam_app_search | 2 |
steam_app_list | 2 |
steam_app_get_timeseries | 2 |
steam_app_insights_get | 10 |
steam_app_localized_names | 2 |
steam_demo_get | 1 |
steam_demo_get_localized | 1 |
steam_demo_batch | 2 |
steam_demo_search | 2 |
steam_demo_list | 2 |
steam_demo_localized_names | 2 |
steam_developer_get | 1 |
steam_developer_get_apps | 2 |
steam_developer_get_timeseries | 2 |
steam_developer_search | 2 |
steam_publisher_get | 1 |
steam_publisher_get_apps | 2 |
steam_publisher_get_timeseries | 2 |
steam_publisher_search | 2 |
steam_tag_get | 1 |
steam_category_get | 1 |
steam_genre_get | 1 |
steam_rank_get | 2 |
steam_review_get | 1 |
steam_review_list | 2 |
steam_creator_get | 1 |
steam_creator_get_apps | 2 |
steam_creator_get_timeseries | 2 |
steam_creator_search | 2 |
VPP Tools (Player Persona)
VPP (Verified Player Persona) tools provide AI-generated player profiles and preference insights derived from real player reviews and community posts. Their credit costs are declared dynamically by the VPP service.
| MCP Tool | Description | Credits |
|---|---|---|
vpp_search_profiles | Search player profiles by game preferences and behavior dimensions | 2 |
vpp_get_profile | Retrieve full profile for a specific player | 1 |
vpp_ask | Ask a natural-language question answered by retrieval-augmented generation over player profiles | 10 |
vpp_stats | Get aggregate statistics on the player profile pool | 1 |
VPP tool costs are fetched from the service at startup and refresh every 10 minutes. The table above reflects current defaults; actual costs may differ if the service has been updated.
Checking Your Usage
- Dashboard → Team → Connect API — View your team's monthly credit usage and remaining balance.
- Dashboard → Account → API Keys — View your personal API key credit usage.
Quota Reset
Credits reset on the first day of each calendar month. Unused credits do not roll over.
Tips for Reducing Credit Usage
- Cache responses on your end. Game data changes infrequently — a short TTL cache can dramatically reduce calls.
- Use batch endpoints (
/apps/batch,steam_app_batch) when fetching multiple games. A batch of 50 costs only 2 credits, vs 50 × 1 = 50 for individual calls. - Prefer specific lookups over broad searches when you know the exact
appid. - Avoid polling the
insightsendpoint — it costs 10 credits. Fetch insights once and cache the result.