# Glassnode vs CryptoQuant At roughly a hundred dollars a month one of these gives you a chart to look at and the other gives you an API key — and each has a second wall further up. *https://cryptomarkets.tools/compare/glassnode-vs-cryptoquant* - https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/glassnode.md - https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/cryptoquant.md ## The same money buys two different things Both sell curated on-chain metrics with a charting front end, both have a free tier that shows you the shape of the product, and both put their real content behind roughly a hundred dollars a month. At that price the products diverge completely. - **[CryptoQuant](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/cryptoquant)** — 39, 109 and 799 dollars a month, with the API on the same ladder. Its headline metrics sit behind the 109-dollar plan. - **[Glassnode](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/glassnode)** — a free Standard plan, 99 dollars for Advanced, and the API as a **separate annual contract**: 9,000 dollars a year for on-chain data, 7,000 for market data. So the question that decides this is not which metric set you prefer. It is whether the data has to reach your own code. If it does, CryptoQuant is roughly two orders of magnitude cheaper to start with, and that is not a subtle advantage that feature comparison will overturn. ## Each has a second wall, and they are in different places **CryptoQuant's is depth.** Block resolution and full history sit behind the 799-dollar tier, which the card notes has no monthly option — so the cheap API is an API to recent, coarser data. Commercial use is Premium too. There are no websockets, no streaming and no webhooks anywhere: minute candles on Professional and above are the finest grain, delivered by polling, and alerts go to a browser or to Telegram, so routing one into your own system means writing the bridge. **Glassnode's is the catalogue itself.** Metrics move between plans in both directions, which means the series you designed around can leave your tier without you changing anything. Its exchange balances cover Bitcoin and Ethereum only and are lower bounds by construction — a floor under the real number, not the number. And Advanced is personal use only. ## What neither of them is Neither is a wallet tracker. The unit in both is an aggregate: an exchange's reserve, a miner cohort's flow, an entity-to-entity total. Pointing at an address and following it is a different product — [Nansen](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/nansen), [Arkham](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/arkham) or [Bubblemaps](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/bubblemaps) — and buying either of these two for that job is buying the wrong instrument at any price. And neither gives you the definition. If the metric you need is not in a catalogue, or you need to know exactly how it was computed because a trade depends on it, the answer is [Dune](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/dune) or [Allium](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/allium) and writing the SQL yourself. ## Which one, and when **Take CryptoQuant** if the data is going into code — a model, a dashboard you build, a signal — and you can live with recent history at the cheap end. It is the only one of the two whose API is a subscription rather than a procurement. **Take Glassnode** if you work in the browser, want the wider curated catalogue and the studio around it, and your use is personal. Treat the API as a separate budget line that has nothing to do with the 99 dollars. **Take [Santiment](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/santiment)** if social and developer activity matter as much as the chain data; it is 49 dollars, and [SanAPI](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/sanapi) is its programmatic half sold on its own plans. **Do not build a reproducible backtest on either** without first testing what happens when you re-fetch a window you already stored. One of them tells you the values can change; the other changes which values you are entitled to. Both facts are on the cards, and both are the kind that only bite three months in. ## FAQ ### Which one gets me an API for about a hundred dollars? CryptoQuant. Its programmatic access sits on the same self-serve ladder as the dashboards — 39 dollars, then 109, then 799. Glassnode's API is a separate annual contract quoted in the thousands, and its 99-dollar Advanced plan is a viewing plan. That single difference decides this comparison for anyone who intends to pull the data into their own code. ### So is Glassnode just the expensive one? No — it is the one with the deeper curated catalogue and the charting studio around it, and for a reader who works in the browser that is what they are buying. The mistake is assuming the subscription extends to programmatic access. Read the plan you are on as a licence to look, and budget the API separately. ### Can I build a backtest on either of these? Carefully, and read each card's warning first. CryptoQuant states that values you have already been served can change, so a stored series can disagree with a re-fetch. Glassnode moves metrics between plans in both directions, so a series your plan covered last quarter may not be covered now. Both are ordinary for on-chain data and both break a backtest silently. ### What is not in either of them? Wallet-level work. Both sell aggregates — an exchange's reserve, a miner cohort's flow, a network-wide ratio — and neither lets you point at an address and follow it. Glassnode's exchange balances are Bitcoin and Ethereum only and are lower bounds by construction. For address-level questions the answer is a labelling product or your own SQL. ### Is commercial use included? Not at the bottom in either case. CryptoQuant requires Premium for commercial use, and Glassnode's Advanced plan is personal use only. If the output is going in front of your own customers, the plan you were comparing is not the plan you can buy.