Frequently Asked Questions

Pexafy is an AI-powered image search engine that aggregates millions of free and premium images from multiple sources — Unsplash, Pexels, Pixabay, Wikimedia Commons, and more — into a single API. Instead of integrating dozens of image services, you make one request to Pexafy and get the best results across all sources, ranked by AI semantic relevance.

Sign up for a free account at pexafy.com/auth/register/, then go to Dashboard → API Keys → Create Key. Your first key is created instantly with no credit card required. The free plan includes 1K API requests per month.

Yes! Our Free plan gives you 1K API requests per month — no credit card needed. You can search text-based queries and access all free image sources. Need more requests, premium images, or image-to-image search? Check our Pricing page for Pro and Business plans.

Pexafy currently aggregates images from Unsplash, Pexels, Pixabay, Wikimedia Commons, and Openverse. We're continuously adding more sources. You can filter results by source using the source parameter in the API.

Pexafy is a developer-first API, not a consumer search engine. We aggregate only free-to-use and Creative Commons sources, so every result is safe to use in your product. Our AI model understands semantic meaning — search 'cozy autumn vibes' and get relevant images, not just keyword matches. Plus, you get structured JSON responses, pagination, filters, and usage analytics — all via a single REST API.

We currently provide a REST API with comprehensive documentation. Official SDKs for Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, and PHP are on our roadmap. In the meantime, the API is straightforward to integrate — just a single HTTPS request with an API key header. Check our docs for code examples in several languages.

Rate limits depend on your plan: Free — 20 requests/minute, Pro — 60 requests/minute, Business — 300 requests/minute. If you exceed the limit, you'll receive a 429 Too Many Requests response with a Retry-After header indicating when you can retry.

All responses are JSON with a standard envelope: {success, data, meta, pagination, error}. Each photo object includes: id, title, description, urls (thumbnail, small, regular, full, raw), photographer (name, url), source, license, dimensions, colors, and relevance score.

Pexafy uses cursor-based pagination. Each response includes a pagination.next_cursor value. Pass this as the cursor parameter in your next request to get the following page. When next_cursor is null, you've reached the end.

Yes! You can filter by: color_name (red, blue, green…), color_hex (e.g. #FF5733 with optional color_tolerance), orientation (landscape, portrait, square), source (unsplash, pexels, pixabay…), and score_threshold (minimum relevance 0.0–1.0). Combine filters for precise results.

Add your API key as a request header: X-Api-Key: pxfy_your_key_here. Alternatively, use Bearer token authentication: Authorization: Bearer <jwt_token>. Never share your API key in client-side code.

You can request up to 80 results per page using the per_page parameter (default is 20). For large result sets, use cursor-based pagination to fetch subsequent pages. There is no limit on the total number of pages you can paginate through.

Yes! our model was trained on multilingual data, so you can search in English, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, and many other languages. Semantic understanding works best in English, but most common queries in other languages produce accurate results. We recommend English for maximum precision.

Yes, you can upgrade or downgrade anytime from Dashboard → Billing. Upgrades take effect immediately with prorated billing. Downgrades take effect at the end of your current billing period. Everything is handled automatically via Stripe.

API requests are blocked once you hit your monthly limit — you'll receive a 429 response with an informative error message. To continue using the API, upgrade to a higher plan from Dashboard → Billing.

We offer a 14-day money-back guarantee on all paid plans. If you're not satisfied within the first 14 days of subscribing, contact us at [email protected] and we'll issue a full refund, no questions asked.

We accept all major credit and debit cards (Visa, Mastercard, American Express), as well as Apple Pay and Google Pay — all processed securely via Stripe. We don't store any payment information on our servers.

No contracts, no commitments. All plans are month-to-month (or discounted yearly if you choose). Cancel anytime from Dashboard → Billing with a single click. Your access continues until the end of the current billing period.

Yes! Paying yearly saves approximately 17%: Pro is $290/year ($24/month) instead of $29/month. Business is $2990/year ($249/month) instead of $299/month. Switch to yearly from Dashboard → Billing.

Yes! If your needs exceed the Business plan — higher rate limits, dedicated infrastructure, custom SLA, or on-premise deployment — contact us at [email protected] with your requirements. We'll put together a tailored plan for your organization.

All prices are listed in USD. Stripe, our payment processor, automatically converts to your local currency at checkout. Your bank may apply a small foreign exchange fee depending on your card type and country.

No. Pexafy is a search engine — we index and search images hosted on third-party platforms (Unsplash, Pexels, Pixabay, etc.). We do not store, host, or redistribute the actual image files. All images remain the property of their respective photographers and platforms.

It depends on the source license. Unsplash, Pexels, and Pixabay all offer free commercial use licenses for most of their images. Wikimedia Commons and Openverse use various Creative Commons licenses — some allow commercial use, some don't. Always check the license field in the API response and verify at the source URL before using an image commercially.

Premium images appear in search results but may require a subscription or purchase at the source to download in full resolution. The API returns previews/thumbnails for all images. On Free and Pro plans, the source URL in the response will tell you where to access the full image.

Pexafy returns URLs to images hosted on their original platforms — we don't serve image files directly through the API. For free images (Unsplash, Pexels, Pixabay), you can download the full resolution image from the source URL provided in the response. Always respect the source platform's terms of service.

Our indexing pipeline runs daily for all major sources. New images uploaded to Unsplash, Pexels, Pixabay, and other platforms are typically searchable via Pexafy within 24–48 hours. Our index currently contains over 5 million images and is growing every day.

Go to Dashboard → Settings → Danger Zone → Delete Account. Account deletion is permanent and removes all your API keys, usage history, and personal data. You can also email us at [email protected] to request deletion under GDPR/right to erasure.

Yes. We use HTTPS everywhere, bcrypt for password hashing, and store sessions in Redis with short-lived JWT tokens. We don't sell or share your data with third parties. API keys are hashed before storage. Read our Privacy Policy for full details on data practices.

Yes, depending on your plan: Free (1 key), Pro (5 keys), Business (∞ keys). Multiple keys let you segregate usage by application, environment (dev/staging/prod), or team member, and revoke individual keys without affecting others.

Immediately revoke the compromised key from Dashboard → API Keys and create a new one. Revocation takes effect instantly — any requests using the old key will be rejected with a 401 error. Never commit API keys to version control; use environment variables instead.

We target 99.9 percent uptime for API availability. Business plan customers receive an SLA with uptime commitments. You can monitor real-time and historical service status on our Status page, accessible from the footer of this site.

Yes. We only collect the minimum data needed to operate the service (email, hashed password, usage logs). We don't sell data to third parties. You can request a full data export or deletion at any time from Dashboard → Settings or by emailing [email protected]. See our Privacy Policy for full details.