Why RateAPI Exists
Rate data was locked inside 4,300 credit union websites. We extracted it.
RateAPI is a credit-union rate API. It scrapes rates from 4,300+ U.S. credit unions daily across mortgages, auto loans, HELOCs, personal loans, and credit cards, ranks them by true cost, and serves the data in under 500ms—with no affiliate fees and no lead selling.
The Problem We Saw
I spent years building financial software at Jack Henry and Vanguard. The same pattern repeated: families overpay on mortgages, auto loans, and credit cards because they can't see what rates are actually available.
The data exists—scattered across thousands of credit union websites—but there's no programmatic access. And the “rate comparison” sites that aggregate it rank by affiliate revenue, not actual cost.
The Question That Started It
I built PlanFi, a retirement calculator. Users kept asking: “When should I refinance my mortgage?”
I couldn't answer. Neither could any other developer building financial tools. The infrastructure didn't exist.
What We Built
RateAPI scrapes rates from 4,300+ credit unions daily across five products: mortgages, auto loans, HELOCs, personal loans, and credit cards. Response time under 500ms. Ranked by true cost—not who paid for placement.
No affiliates. No lead selling. Just data.
Explore current mortgage rates, auto loan rates, and credit unions we track, or read our methodology for how the data is collected.
RateAPI was built to close the information gap that costs American families billions every year on mortgages, auto loans, HELOCs, personal loans, and credit cards. We scrape rates from 4,300+ credit unions daily and serve the data in under 500ms—so developers can finally answer "should I refinance?" in their products. No affiliates. No lead selling. Just data.
Source: Kameron Kales, Founder of RateAPI
About the Founder
Kameron Kales built business banking systems at Jack Henry and consumer investing tools at Vanguard before starting RateAPI. Based in Charlotte.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does RateAPI do?
RateAPI scrapes interest rates from 4,300+ U.S. credit unions every day across five products—mortgages, auto loans, HELOCs, personal loans, and credit cards—and serves them through a REST API and MCP server in under 500ms.
How is RateAPI different from rate comparison sites?
RateAPI ranks results by true cost rather than affiliate revenue, and it takes no affiliate fees and sells no leads. Developers get raw, programmatic rate data instead of a consumer-facing ranking shaped by paid placement.
Where does RateAPI get its rate data?
Rate data is extracted directly from the published rate pages of more than 4,300 credit union websites and refreshed daily. See the methodology page for how rates are scraped, validated, and normalized.
Who built RateAPI?
RateAPI was founded by Kameron Kales, who built business banking systems at Jack Henry and consumer investing tools at Vanguard before starting the company in Charlotte.