Sportmonks Review 2026

Sportmonks is a Dutch sports data company, and its Football API is the main product. It is a REST API that covers more than 2,200 leagues, from the Premier League and the Champions League down to lower divisions in small countries. You get fixtures, live scores, match events, lineups, team and player statistics, standings, squads and top scorers. Separate APIs cover cricket and Formula 1.

The current version is v3. It is built around one idea: you ask for a base object, such as a fixture, and you add the related data you want with an include parameter. One call can return a match with its lineups, events and statistics, so you make fewer requests.

Odds, AI predictions, expected goals (xG) and a pressure index are also available, but they are add-ons that you buy on top of a plan.

The league count is the headline: more than 2,200 competitions on the top plan. Each plan caps the number of leagues you can pick, so check that the leagues you need fit in the plan you want. Extra leagues cost a small fee each per month.

The data per match is deep. Match events include goals, cards and substitutions with the minute. Lineups come with formations, and expected lineups appear before kickoff. Match statistics cover shots, possession, corners and the usual team numbers, and player statistics go down to each match. Higher tiers add ball coordinates and the pressure index.

Historical data is part of the Enterprise plan. On the smaller plans it is a one-time add-on, so budget for it if you train a model on past seasons.

There is no WebSocket. You poll. The docs give you three livescore endpoints: one for matches in play, one for every match from 15 minutes before kickoff to 15 minutes after the final whistle, and a latest endpoint that returns only the fixtures that changed in the last 10 seconds. Poll the latest endpoint on a short loop and you get close to a push feed without a large request bill.

Rate limits are per entity, per hour. Livescores, fixtures, teams and players each have their own counter, so heavy polling on one does not use up the budget for the others. The paid plans run from 2,000 to 5,000 calls per entity per hour, and every response tells you how many calls you have left.

Authentication is simple: send your token as an api_token query parameter or in an Authorization header.

Odds are a bundle, not part of the base plans. The Odds and Predictions bundle adds pre-match and in-play odds from more than 50 bookmakers across more than 150 markets, plus AI match predictions. A separate premium odds feed costs more and is aimed at teams that need more bookmakers and faster updates. A third bundle adds xG for teams and players and the pressure index.

For a betting tool, this means that you can get scores, stats and prices from one provider and one set of IDs. If odds are the main thing you need, compare the bundle with the dedicated feeds in our soccer odds API guide before you decide.

The documentation is large and well organised, with a page for each endpoint and entity, a list of every include, and guides for common jobs like building a live score app. Community SDKs exist for several languages.

Sportmonks also ships an official MCP server, @sportmonks/football-mcp-server on npm. An MCP server lets an AI tool such as Claude or Cursor call the API directly. It has 11 tools: search, player, team, league, squad, matches, match preview, fixture details, standings, past seasons and top scorers. It is in beta, and Sportmonks says that it is a tool for exploring the data, not a production client.

The free plan covers two leagues, the Danish Superliga and the Scottish Premiership, with no card and no expiry. Two small leagues are not enough for a product, but they are enough to build and test your whole integration on real data.

The paid plans are in euros:

• Starter: €29/mo for 5 leagues
• Growth: €99/mo for 30 leagues
• Pro: €249/mo for 120 leagues
• Enterprise: custom price for all 2,200+ leagues, with historical data included

Yearly billing is cheaper on each plan. Every paid plan has a 14-day trial with no card up front. The add-ons stack on top: the Odds and Predictions bundle is about €15/mo and the xG bundle about €24/mo at the time of writing. Check the pricing page for current numbers.

• WebSocket or push. Live data is REST only. Poll the latest endpoint. For push feeds, see the live sports API guide.
• US sports. The NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL are not covered. Football, cricket and F1 are the sports on offer.
• Esports. None.
• Odds in the base plan. Prices need the odds bundle or the premium odds feed.

Teams that build football products: live score apps, fantasy games, club and media sites, and betting tools that need deep match data across many leagues. The league count and the event depth are the reasons to choose it, and the per-league plans let a small project pay for only the competitions it shows.

Solo developers and modellers get a lot from the free plan and the trial. If you need only the top five European leagues, the Starter plan is cheap. If you need US sports or a WebSocket feed, look elsewhere in the sports data API directory.

One of the deepest football data APIs we list, with a long track record, a clear pricing ladder and a free plan that lets you build before you buy. The include system keeps request counts low, and the latest livescore endpoint makes polling practical.

The trade-offs: no WebSocket, football only for most users, and odds and xG cost extra. If football is your product, Sportmonks belongs on your shortlist, and the free plan costs nothing to try.