Why RateAPI Exists
Rate data was locked inside 4,300 credit union websites. We extracted it.
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.
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.