Unsplash

Unsplash is a platform providing the world's largest collection of high-quality, freely usable photographs. The Unsplash API gives developers programmatic access to search, browse, and retrieve photos, collections, topics, and user profiles. Photos are provided under the Unsplash License. Authentication uses Client-ID for public access or OAuth 2.0 for user-delegated operations.

Unsplash publishes 7 API contracts indexed on the APIs.io network, including Collections API, Current User API, Photos API, and 4 more. Tagged areas include Photos, Image, Photography, Stock Photos, and Creative.

The Unsplash catalog on APIs.io includes 1 JSON-LD context and 2 Spectral governance rulesets.

Unsplash’s developer surface includes authentication, documentation, GitHub presence, changelog, engineering blog, and 15 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Profile data on GitHub

40.2/100 developing ▬ flat Agent 44/100 agent ready Heartbeat 80/100 alive Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-11-06 · rubric v0.27.0 · Show this score on your site →

AccessFreemiumSelf serve⚡ Free to try

1 published contract 1 MCP Servers

Photos Image Photography Stock Photos Creative Open Source Media

What this lets a business do 1

Business capabilities this provider's published APIs can perform, derived from its own contracts. Browse all capabilities →

Media, Creator & Social

AE-170

CollectionsPhotosTopics

GET /photos GET /photos/{id} GET /photos/{id}/download GET /collections

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-11-06 · rubric v0.27.0

Composite quality — 40.2/100 · developing

Contract Quality 12.4 / 19

Developer Ergonomics 3.8 / 15

Access Clarity 1.2 / 15

Operational Transparency 3.9 / 10

Contract Governance 2.5 / 9

Discoverability 5.1 / 8

Regulatory Posture 4.9 / 15

Create-or-Update Ergonomics 0.0 / 10

Agent readiness — 44/100 · agent ready

Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 10 / 10

Documented Reversibility 0 / 6

MCP Server 12 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10

Idempotency 0 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8

Request/Response Examples 7 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7

Typed Event Surface 0 / 6

Agent Skills 0 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4

Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

A2A Agent Card 0 / 8

Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 0 / 4

Delegated User Identity 6 / 6

Protected Resource Metadata 5 / 5

Registration Without a Human 0 / 6

Agentic Commerce Well-Known Document 0 / 5

Pagination 5 / 5

Distinct Operations 3 / 3

MCP Tool Quality 6 / 6

Regulatory Posture applies to this provider. Its tags matched the Horizontal (data, software, accessibility, platform) regime, so Regulatory Posture carries 15 points of the composite. If this regime is wrong for your business, say so on your provider repo — the applicability map is public and we will correct it.

Create-or-Update Ergonomics applies to this provider. This API accepts writes, so it carries 10 points of the composite. It is scored from the published contracts themselves: whether a caller can create-or-update in one call, whether the write accepts a key the caller already holds, and whether the response says which branch ran. Without that, every write needs a search-and-branch in front of it, and the first time that check is skipped a duplicate record is created. Scored against the observed mean rather than raw — a provider at the catalog average is unchanged by this facet, not penalised by it.

The six quality facets above are damped to 75 points between them, because the conditional facet above carries the other 25. That is why each facet's contribution is shown against a damped maximum: raising a quality facet moves the composite by 75% of its nominal weight, not 100%. The full arithmetic is at apis.io/rating/.

Show this score on your site.

It updates itself when the score changes. Paste this where you link to your API docs:

<a href="https://apis.io/providers/unsplash/"><img src="https://apis.io/badge/unsplash/card.svg" alt="Unsplash on APIs.io — Kin Score by API Evangelist"></a>

Other styles, a README pill and a shields.io endpoint are on the badge page.

Raise your score.

Agent readiness — checks not met, largest first (exact, from this profile):

Idempotency +9 pts — OpenAPI mutating operations declare an idempotency key — a header, a request-body property, or a named de-duplication token whose own description says so (verified); else common[].type matches /idempoten/i (documented)
Stable Error Semantics +8 pts — OpenAPI $refs a shared error schema across 4xx/5xx responses (verified), else common[].type includes ErrorCatalog / ErrorCodes / DeclineCodes
A2A Agent Card +8 pts — a2a/-a2a.yml manifest, graded on conformance.grade against A2A 1.0.0
Registration Without a Human +6 pts — a `registration_endpoint` in the served RFC 8414 / OIDC discovery document
Typed Event Surface +6 pts — AsyncAPI document, OR webhooks/callbacks objects in the as-published OpenAPI, OR common[].type includes Webhooks
Documented Reversibility +6 pts — a reversal operation in the contract, graded up when a window is documented too

5 more unmet checks in the Agent Readiness table above.

Kin Score — facets with the most composite points still available (weight × headroom):

Access Clarity scores 7.9 — up to +18.4 composite points
Developer Ergonomics scores 25.0 — up to +15.0 composite points
Contract Governance scores 27.3 — up to +8.7 composite points

Each check links to what satisfies it. Publish the artifact, or tell us where it already lives, and the score moves on the next scoring run.

Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. Every facet and dimension name above is a link: it opens that measurement's own page — what it means, the exact checks that feed it, how the whole catalog distributes on it, and the providers at the top of it. This rating is computed from the provider profile at artifacts.apis.io/unsplash/apis.yml: open an issue on github.com/api-evangelist/unsplash to ask a question or point us at an artifact you publish. Submit an artifact on GitHub — free → Manage your own listing — the Influence plan, $499/mo →

Markets this provider is in provisional

The Kin Score Market layer reads a provider inside its market: its position, and how deep its integrations go. Depth is only comparable within a position. Provisional and unweighted: not part of the Kin Score or agent readiness.

Market	Position	Depth	Registered MCP server	Declares compatibility
Raycast Store Extensions (first-party publishers + community-wrapped products)	covered	14.6	-	-
Obsidian Community Plugins (third-party APIs the Obsidian plugin ecosystem integrates)	covered	14.6	-	-

Registered MCP server and declares compatibility are report only — not weighted. Undeclared means we found nothing we can read, so there is no number: we never infer integrations.

Standards implemented 4

Standards this provider implements or carries. De facto ones are profiled and measured by the API Commons; formal ones come from the standards directory and are linked by the provider's own tags. The evidence column says how each claim was established — not that it was made.

Model Context Protocol (MCP)

measured — observed by APIs.io (verified)

OAuth 2.0 Protected Resource Metadata

measured — observed by APIs.io (verified)

OpenAPI

measured — observed by APIs.io (published)

OAuth 2.0

measured — observed by APIs.io (declared)

APIs 7

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

Unsplash Collections API

Photo collection management

Unsplash Current User API

Authenticated user operations

Unsplash Photos API

Photo browsing and management operations

Unsplash Search API

Search photos, collections, and users

Unsplash Stats API

Platform statistics

Unsplash Topics API

Editorial topic operations

Unsplash Users API

User profile operations

Scroll for all 7

Open Collections 8

Open, tool-agnostic API collections (OpenAPI-derived and Bruno).

Unsplash Collections API

OPEN COLLECTION

Unsplash Collections Current User API

OPEN COLLECTION

Unsplash Collections Photos API

OPEN COLLECTION

Unsplash Collections Search API

OPEN COLLECTION

Unsplash Collections Stats API

OPEN COLLECTION

Unsplash Collections Topics API

OPEN COLLECTION

Unsplash Collections Users API

OPEN COLLECTION

Unsplash API

OPEN COLLECTION

Scroll for all 8

MCP Servers 1

Model Context Protocol servers that expose these APIs to AI agents.

Unsplash MCP Server

Remote MCP server at mcp.unsplash.com over HTTP.

MCP SERVER

Unsplash API pricing

Not yet checked against Unsplash's own pricing page. Compiled by API Evangelist on 2026-05-04; confirm before you rely on a figure. A free plan or tier is listed.

Plan	Price
Free freemium	Free
Professional paid	Free
Enterprise enterprise	—

Plan details, limits and sources →

Rate limits

Free Tier Default: 10 requests per minute
Free Tier Monthly Quota: 1000 requests per month
Professional Tier Default: 100 requests per minute

Compiled by API Evangelist, not yet checked against Unsplash's documentation. All 5 limits →

Pricing Plans 1

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

Unsplash Plans Pricing

3 plans

PLANS

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Unsplash Rate Limits

5 limits

RATE LIMITS

Service Levels 1

Uptime the provider promises or reports, as SLA4OAI. Read from its own pages; APIs.io runs no monitors.

Unsplash

SLA

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

Unsplash Finops

FINOPS

Semantic Vocabularies 1

JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.

Unsplash Context

11 classes · 42 properties

JSON-LD

Spectral Rules 2

Spectral governance rulesets for linting and validating these APIs.

Unsplash — jsonschema rules

5 rules · 4 warnings 1 info

SPECTRAL

Unsplash API Rules

8 rules · 2 errors 4 warnings 2 info

SPECTRAL

JSON Schema 1

Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.

Unsplash Photo

20 properties

JSON SCHEMA

JSON Structure 1

JSON Structure definitions describing this provider's data shapes.

Unsplash Photo Structure

0 properties

JSON STRUCTURE

Examples 2

Example request and response payloads for these APIs.

Unsplash Get Random Photo Example

2 fields

EXAMPLE

Unsplash Search Photos Example

2 fields

EXAMPLE

Security Posture 3

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Unsplash Authentication

apiKey/oauth2 · 2 schemes

SECURITY

Unsplash Domain Security

TLSv1.2 · HSTS · DMARC

SECURITY

Unsplash Vulnerability Disclosure

security.txt · contact published

SECURITY

Scopes 1

OAuth scopes governing access to this provider's APIs.

Unsplash Scopes

8 scopes · authorizationCode

8 scopes

SCOPES

Agentic Access 1

Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.

Unsplash Agentic Access

29 operations · 7 acting

AGENTIC

Resources

Documentation 2

Reference material describing how the API behaves

Documentation

Documentation

Guidelines

Guidelines

Agent Surfaces 1

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

AgenticAccess

AgenticAccess

Design & Contract 2

Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events

Vocabulary

Vocabulary

JSONLDContext

JSONLDContext

Build 2

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

PostmanWorkspace

PostmanWorkspace

GitHub

GitHub

Access & Security 4

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

VulnerabilityDisclosure

VulnerabilityDisclosure

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Authentication

Authentication

OAuthScopes

OAuthScopes

Operate 2

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

RateLimits

RateLimits

ChangeLog

ChangeLog

Commercial 2

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

Plans

Plans

FinOps

FinOps

Company 3

The organization behind the API

LinkedIn

Website

Website

Blog

Blog

Other 2

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

CapabilityMap

CapabilityMap

Developers

Developers

Source (apis.yml)

aid: unsplash
deliveryModel:
  model: unknown
  open_source: false
  commercial: false
  callable_host: true
  label: Delivery model not determined — needs a product licence on record
  confidence: low
  source:
  - openapi
  generated: '2026-08-28'
  method: derived
accessModel:
  pricing: freemium
  onboarding: self-serve
  trial: false
  try_now: true
  public: false
  gated: none
  gated_source:
  - onboarding
  label: Freemium · Self-serve signup
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - plans
  - authentication
  - security
  generated: '2026-11-06'
  method: derived
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/unsplash.png
name: Unsplash
description: Unsplash is a platform providing the world's largest collection of high-quality, freely usable photographs. The
  Unsplash API gives developers programmatic access to search, browse, and retrieve photos, collections, topics, and user
  profiles. Photos are provided under the Unsplash License. Authentication uses Client-ID for public access or OAuth 2.0 for
  user-delegated operations.
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/unsplash/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
created: '2024-11-13'
modified: '2026-05-19'
specificationVersion: '0.23'
type: Index
tags:
- Photos
- Image
- Photography
- Stock Photos
- Creative
- Open Source
- Media
tags_raw:
- Photos
- Images
- Photography
- Stock Photos
- Creative
- Open Source
- Media
- Open-Source
apis:
- aid: unsplash:unsplash-collections-api
  name: Unsplash Collections API
  description: Photo collection management
  humanURL: https://unsplash.com/developers
  baseURL: https://api.unsplash.com
  tags:
  - Collection
  tags_raw:
  - Collections
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/unsplash-collections-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://unsplash.com/documentation
  - type: SpectralRules
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/unsplash/refs/heads/main/rules/unsplash-rules.yml
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/unsplash/refs/heads/main/json-schema/unsplash-photo-schema.json
- aid: unsplash:unsplash-current-user-api
  name: Unsplash Current User API
  description: Authenticated user operations
  humanURL: https://unsplash.com/developers
  baseURL: https://api.unsplash.com
  tags:
  - Current User
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/unsplash-current-user-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://unsplash.com/documentation
  - type: SpectralRules
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/unsplash/refs/heads/main/rules/unsplash-rules.yml
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/unsplash/refs/heads/main/json-schema/unsplash-photo-schema.json
- aid: unsplash:unsplash-photos-api
  name: Unsplash Photos API
  description: Photo browsing and management operations
  humanURL: https://unsplash.com/developers
  baseURL: https://api.unsplash.com
  tags:
  - Photos
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/unsplash-photos-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://unsplash.com/documentation
  - type: SpectralRules
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/unsplash/refs/heads/main/rules/unsplash-rules.yml
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/unsplash/refs/heads/main/json-schema/unsplash-photo-schema.json
- aid: unsplash:unsplash-search-api
  name: Unsplash Search API
  description: Search photos, collections, and users
  humanURL: https://unsplash.com/developers
  baseURL: https://api.unsplash.com
  tags:
  - Search
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/unsplash-search-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://unsplash.com/documentation
  - type: SpectralRules
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/unsplash/refs/heads/main/rules/unsplash-rules.yml
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/unsplash/refs/heads/main/json-schema/unsplash-photo-schema.json
- aid: unsplash:unsplash-stats-api
  name: Unsplash Stats API
  description: Platform statistics
  humanURL: https://unsplash.com/developers
  baseURL: https://api.unsplash.com
  tags:
  - Stats
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/unsplash-stats-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://unsplash.com/documentation
  - type: SpectralRules
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/unsplash/refs/heads/main/rules/unsplash-rules.yml
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/unsplash/refs/heads/main/json-schema/unsplash-photo-schema.json
- aid: unsplash:unsplash-topics-api
  name: Unsplash Topics API
  description: Editorial topic operations
  humanURL: https://unsplash.com/developers
  baseURL: https://api.unsplash.com
  tags:
  - Topic
  tags_raw:
  - Topics
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/unsplash-topics-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://unsplash.com/documentation
  - type: SpectralRules
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/unsplash/refs/heads/main/rules/unsplash-rules.yml
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/unsplash/refs/heads/main/json-schema/unsplash-photo-schema.json
- aid: unsplash:unsplash-users-api
  name: Unsplash Users API
  description: User profile operations
  humanURL: https://unsplash.com/developers
  baseURL: https://api.unsplash.com
  tags:
  - User
  tags_raw:
  - Users
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/unsplash-users-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://unsplash.com/documentation
  - type: SpectralRules
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/unsplash/refs/heads/main/rules/unsplash-rules.yml
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/unsplash/refs/heads/main/json-schema/unsplash-photo-schema.json
common:
- type: CapabilityMap
  url: capabilities/unsplash-capability-edges.yml
  name: Unsplash Business Capability Map
- type: PostmanWorkspace
  url: https://www.postman.com/kinlaneapi/unsplash/overview
- type: Plans
  url: plans/unsplash-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/unsplash-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/unsplash-finops.yml
- type: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/unsplash-agentic-access.yml
- type: VulnerabilityDisclosure
  url: security/unsplash-vulnerability-disclosure.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/unsplash-domain-security.yml
- type: Authentication
  url: authentication/unsplash-authentication.yml
- type: OAuthScopes
  url: scopes/unsplash-scopes.yml
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/company/unsplash
- type: Website
  url: https://unsplash.com
- type: Documentation
  url: https://unsplash.com/documentation
- type: Developers
  url: https://unsplash.com/developers
- type: Guidelines
  url: https://help.unsplash.com/en/articles/2511245-unsplash-api-guidelines
- type: GitHub
  url: https://github.com/unsplash
- type: ChangeLog
  url: https://unsplash.com/documentation/changelog
- type: Vocabulary
  url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/unsplash/refs/heads/main/vocabulary/unsplash-vocabulary.yml
- type: JSONLDContext
  url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/unsplash/refs/heads/main/json-ld/unsplash-context.jsonld
- type: Blog
  url: https://unsplash.com/blog/rss/
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com

Unsplash API — frequently asked questions

Does Unsplash have an API?

Yes. APIs.io lists 7 APIs from Unsplash, including Unsplash Collections API, Unsplash Current User API and Unsplash Photos API, and 4 more.

Is there an OpenAPI specification for the Unsplash API?

Yes. APIs.io indexes 7 OpenAPI specifications for Unsplash, each linked for download from this page.

How do I authenticate with the Unsplash API?

Unsplash documents its authentication (apiKey/oauth2 · 2 schemes). The details are profiled on APIs.io as Unsplash Authentication.

How much does the Unsplash API cost?

APIs.io lists 3 pricing plans for Unsplash, with each plan's price, limits and inclusions under Pricing on this page.

Does Unsplash have an MCP server?

Yes. APIs.io lists 1 MCP server for Unsplash: Remote MCP server at mcp.unsplash.com over HTTP.

Is the Unsplash API ready for AI agents?

Unsplash has a Kin Score of 40.2 out of 100 (developing) and an Agent Readiness score of 44.1 (agent-ready), scored by API Evangelist on 2026-11-06.

Work with this as data

Every provider here is available over the APIs.io API and to AI agents over MCP.

MCP server

One button, every client — Claude, Cursor, VS Code and the rest.

https://apis.io/mcp

Tools for providers

9 MCP tools reach this

find_providersBrowse and filter every provider in the catalog.
get_provider_artifactsEvery artifact this provider publishes, grouped by type.
get_provider_operationsEvery operation across all of their OpenAPIs — one call instead of parsing every spec.
get_provider_toolsEvery MCP tool they ship, with the operation each wraps.
get_provider_evidenceHow each part of their score was established. Free — the basis for a claim should not sit behind it.
get_provider_ratingPRO — composite, band, trend and facet scores.
apis_io_searchSTART HERE — APIs, providers and tags for one query, each with its total.
resolveTurn a domain, URL or GitHub org into the provider it belongs to.
find_cohortsEvery scored population of providers in the catalog.

All 92 tools →

Call it yourself

curl for this page

This provider

curl "https://apis.io/api/v1/providers/unsplash"

All providers

curl "https://apis.io/api/v1/providers?limit=25"

Every operation they expose

curl "https://apis.io/api/v1/providers/unsplash/operations?limit=25"

How their score was established

curl "https://apis.io/api/v1/providers/unsplash/evidence"

Calls without X-API-Key need no key. Calls with it need a paid plan — get a key.

Get an API key

Free tier, no form to fill in. Signing in shares your email address with us — we store it to create your key and to recognise you if you sign in with another provider. See our Privacy Policy and Terms.

GitHub Google LinkedIn

A second provider on the same verified email joins the account you already have.