Benzinga's News API pricing in 2026 is sales-gated: there is no published self-serve price card. Benzinga offers a fee-free Basic tier (headline, body teaser, and a link back to Benzinga.com) and several premium tiers with fully embeddable body content, but the premium and enterprise prices are quoted per use case after contacting sales. Its selling point is low-latency, non-delayed news. For an LLM news-feed pipeline that does not need Benzinga's specific newsroom speed, Polygon.io's Ticker News endpoint (bundled into its Stocks plans with sentiment insights) is the cheaper, self-serve alternative. Track news-source MCP coverage with the Finance MCP Directory.
TL;DR
| Fact | Benzinga News API | Polygon.io Ticker News |
|---|---|---|
| Self-serve published price | No, sales-quoted | Yes, bundled in Stocks plans |
| Free tier | Basic: headline + teaser + link | Included on Basic (free) plan, 5 calls/min |
| Premium content | Embeddable body (premium tiers) | Full article metadata + sentiment insights |
| Latency | Non-delayed (premium feature) | Hourly-updated news index |
| Sentiment | Via Benzinga products | insights array (sentiment + reasoning) |
The honest headline: Benzinga is a premium, sales-gated newswire; Polygon News is the self-serve budget alternative for most LLM-ingestion jobs.
Benzinga News API: premium, and priced by quote
Benzinga's News API pricing is not publicly listed. It is customized to the customer's data volume and use case, and obtaining a number means contacting Benzinga's sales team.1 The tier structure that is documented:
- Basic (fee-free). Returns the article headline, a body teaser, and a hyperlink to read the full story on Benzinga.com.1
- Premium (fee-liable) tiers. Add fully embeddable body content so readers stay on your platform, plus higher-volume access.1
- Enterprise. Tailored data feeds, custom endpoints, dedicated support, and negotiated pricing for high-volume or proprietary-integration needs.1
Benzinga's differentiator is speed: its stock news is non-delayed and delivered via mechanisms built for minimal latency, which is a premium feature.1 Its real-time desk products extend to an audio squawk feed.2 If your use case is event-driven trading where seconds matter, that latency is the product you are paying for.
What is not publicly documented (as of May 2026) is any specific dollar figure: input that price into your model only after a sales quote.
Polygon.io News: the self-serve budget alternative
For an LLM pipeline that ingests headlines and bodies for summarization or signal extraction (and does not need Benzinga's newsroom-grade latency) Polygon.io's Ticker News endpoint is the cheaper path because it is bundled into a self-serve data plan you already buy for prices.
Verified facts about the Polygon Ticker News endpoint:3
- Returns per-article
title,description,author,published_utc, publisher details, image/AMP URLs, keywords, and aninsightsarray carryingsentimentandsentiment_reasoningper ticker. - Included in the Stocks plans (Basic through Business); the free Basic plan carries the standard 5-calls/min limit and 2-year history, while paid Stocks plans unlock full history back to mid-2016.
- News data is updated hourly: adequate for research and summarization, not for sub-minute event trading.
So the trade is explicit: Benzinga buys you latency and a curated premium newswire; Polygon News buys you self-serve, bundled, sentiment-tagged news at the price of an hourly refresh cadence.
Which to pick for an LLM news pipeline
- Event-driven, latency-sensitive (news-reaction trading). Benzinga: pay for the speed, get the sales quote.
- Research, summarization, daily/intraday signal extraction. Polygon.io News: bundled, self-serve, sentiment-tagged, hourly refresh.
- Free first pass / prototype. Polygon Basic free tier (5 calls/min) or Benzinga's fee-free Basic (teaser + link), depending on whether you need body text.
- Filings, not news. Neither: use the free SEC EDGAR API for primary documents.
Verified engine output
The block below runs the Finance MCP Directory filtered to A-graded MCP servers. The Polygon.io read-only server (which exposes the same news endpoint among its data surfaces) is among the top-graded options, which is why a Polygon-based news pipeline is also the cleanest to wire into an agent. The output is computed live from the shipped bundle, not typed by hand.
Connects to
- Finance MCP Directory: MCP servers for news and market-data sources.
- Polygon.io News API Pricing 2026: the Polygon News tier detail in full.
- SEC EDGAR API Rate Limits 2026: the free primary-document source for filings, not news.
- Tiingo vs Polygon vs Finnhub 2026: budget vendors that also bundle news.
References
Footnotes
-
Benzinga. "Stock News API" / API product suite. benzinga.com/apis, verified 2026-05-25. https://www.benzinga.com/apis/cloud-product/stock-news-api/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5
-
Benzinga. "Financial Market Data & APIs." benzinga.com/apis, verified 2026-05-25. https://www.benzinga.com/apis/ ↩
-
Polygon.io (Massive). "Ticker News: Stocks REST API." massive.com/docs, verified 2026-05-25. https://massive.com/docs/rest/stocks/news ↩
Verified engine output
Show the recompute-verified inputs and outputs
| grade | A |
|---|
| total | 7 |
|---|---|
| filtered | 2 |
| servers › row 1 › id | alpaca-mcp-v2 |
| servers › row 1 › name | Alpaca MCP Server v2 |
| servers › row 1 › vendor | alpaca |
| servers › row 1 › official | true |
| servers › row 1 › url | https://github.com/alpacahq/alpaca-mcp-server |
| servers › row 1 › description | Official Alpaca MCP server. Shipped April 2026 with 61 actions across equities, options, and crypto. Read + execute across the Alpaca brokerage API. |
| servers › row 1 › scope | full |
| servers › row 1 › auth | api-key |
| servers › row 1 › idempotency supported | true |
| servers › row 1 › transport | stdio+http |
| servers › row 1 › schema quality | A |
| servers › row 1 › license | MIT |
| servers › row 1 › last commit | 2026-04-15 |
| servers › row 1 › capabilities (7 items) | [...] |
| servers › row 1 › security notes › row 1 | API key has broad trading authority — store securely |
| servers › row 1 › security notes › row 2 | No scoping of key permissions in-server (rely on Alpaca dashboard key scopes) |
| servers › row 1 › security notes › row 3 | Idempotency key supported on order submission |
| servers › row 1 › overall grade | A |
| servers › row 2 › id | polygon-mcp |
| servers › row 2 › name | Polygon.io MCP Server |
| servers › row 2 › vendor | polygon |
| servers › row 2 › official | true |
| servers › row 2 › url | https://github.com/polygon-io/mcp-polygon |
| servers › row 2 › description | Official Polygon.io MCP server. Read-only access to all Polygon equities, options, crypto, FX data endpoints. |
| servers › row 2 › scope | read-only |
| servers › row 2 › auth | api-key |
| servers › row 2 › idempotency supported | false |
| servers › row 2 › transport | stdio+http |
| servers › row 2 › schema quality | A |
| servers › row 2 › license | Apache-2.0 |
| servers › row 2 › last commit | 2026-04-10 |
| servers › row 2 › capabilities › row 1 | stocks aggregates (daily / minute / sec / tick) |
| servers › row 2 › capabilities › row 2 | options chains |
| servers › row 2 › capabilities › row 3 | crypto trades + quotes |
| servers › row 2 › capabilities › row 4 | forex rates |
| servers › row 2 › capabilities › row 5 | news API |
| servers › row 2 › capabilities › row 6 | reference data |
| servers › row 2 › security notes › row 1 | Read-only scope — no trade execution surface |
| servers › row 2 › security notes › row 2 | API key required; safe to scope tightly |
| servers › row 2 › security notes › row 3 | No idempotency concern (no writes) |
| servers › row 2 › overall grade | A |
Computed live at build time.
Frequently asked questions
- How much does the Benzinga News API cost in 2026?
- Benzinga does not publish a self-serve price. Pricing is quoted per use case by their sales team based on data volume and integration needs. A fee-free Basic tier (headline + teaser + link) exists.
- Is there a free Benzinga News API tier?
- Yes. The Basic fee-free tier returns the article headline, a body teaser, and a link back to Benzinga.com. Embeddable full body content requires a paid premium tier.
- What is a cheaper alternative to Benzinga News?
- Polygon.io's Ticker News endpoint, bundled into its self-serve Stocks plans with a per-article sentiment insights array. It refreshes hourly rather than in real time.
- Does Polygon News include sentiment?
- Yes. The Ticker News endpoint returns an insights array with sentiment and sentiment_reasoning per ticker.
- Which is better for news-reaction trading?
- Benzinga, because its non-delayed low-latency newswire is the product. Polygon News updates hourly, which suits research and summarization, not sub-minute event trading.