★ A CURATED DIRECTORY OF FINANCIAL TOOLS AND RESOURCES ★
VOL. XCIV, NO. 247
FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) Review, Pricing, and Features
FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) is the free macroeconomic time-series database from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, used by students, investors, analysts, quants, and product builders who need trusted economic data, charts, release calendars, Excel access, mobile apps, and a REST API. It is strongest for official macro context around inflation, rates, GDP, employment, exchange rates, credit, and market indicators rather than equity fundamentals or brokerage workflows. API users need a free API key, and usage remains subject to FRED terms and source-specific data restrictions.
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Pricing
Free
Free
Free access (subject to Terms of Use). API requests require an API key; some saved features require a (free) FRED account.
Key features
- Search tools across and chart hundreds of thousands of economic and financial data series from many official and third-party sources.
- Research coverage for macro topics such as GDP, inflation, prices, employment, exchange rates, interest rates, credit, monetary data, and market indicators.
- Browsing access to by categories, releases, sources, and tags, with series metadata for units, frequency, last update, and next release where available.
- FRED charts for visualization, sharing, embedded graphs, graph images, and saved graph workflows with a free account.
- Monitoring the economic release calendar for scheduled release dates and times, while accounting for provider timing and availability caveats.
- Email notifications, dashboards, data lists, saved graphs, saved maps, and API-key management through a free FRED account.
- Query access for FRED and ALFRED through the REST API over HTTPS with XML or JSON responses and endpoints for categories, releases, series observations, sources, tags, maps, and bulk release data.
- The Excel add-in for one-click downloads, spreadsheet refreshes when new data is released, frequency conversion, and growth-rate calculations.
- The iOS and Android apps for mobile access, saved favorites, graphs, and data lists.
- Respect API-key, rate-limit, terms-of-use, scraping, and copyrighted-series constraints before building production data products.
- FRED is official macro data infrastructure, not a stock screener, broker, portfolio tracker, or investment recommendation engine.
FAQ
Is FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) free?
FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) is free to use. Visit the vendor site for the latest limits and onboarding details.
Who is FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) best for?
FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) is built for Students/Researchers, Analysts, and Quants/Developers. It suits beginner, intermediate, and advanced users.
What platforms and connections does FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) support?
You can use FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) on Web and Mobile. FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) offers an API (REST) with APIKey authentication. Integrations include Microsoft Excel (FRED Add-in).
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