ReadMe

Hosted developer hub priced per API project, with docs personalised from live request logs

As of 30 August 2026, ReadMe has a free plan and paid plans start at $99/month. A documentation platform for public and partner APIs that renders OpenAPI references, guides and changelogs. Softwr lists it under Documentation. ReadMe is available on Web.

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Overview

What ReadMe does

ReadMe hosts developer documentation: an API reference generated from an OpenAPI description, hand-written guides and recipes, a changelog, a support widget and an interactive request playground. Content is written in Markdown in a hosted editor or synchronised from a Git repository with the rdme command line tool, and each documentation set can be versioned alongside the API it describes. Two commercial facts sit behind the feature list. First, the pricing unit is the project, meaning one API, not the seat, so a team of three documenting one API pays the same as a team of forty, while an organisation with six separate APIs pays six times over unless it negotiates an enterprise contract. That inverts the usual calculation and rewards consolidating several services into one documented surface. Second, the metrics and personalisation features depend on your API sending request logs to ReadMe. In exchange, a logged-in developer sees their own API keys prefilled and their own recent requests next to the endpoint that failed, which measurably reduces support tickets. The cost is that production request metadata, and whatever it contains, leaves your infrastructure to a third party, which means a security review and a log-scrubbing implementation before launch. Buyers are API-first companies with an external developer audience: payments, communications, logistics and infrastructure vendors whose documentation is a sales channel. The trade-off is scope and lock-in. ReadMe is built around describing REST APIs, so it is a poor fit for long-form product manuals or internal knowledge bases, theming is bounded by the platform, and content plus its custom extensions has to be untangled from ReadMe on the way out.

What people use it for

Publishing a public API reference where a developer can send a live request with their own key from the documentation page
Cutting support load by showing an integrating developer their own recent failing requests next to the endpoint description
Keeping documentation versions aligned with API versions so customers on an older release read the matching reference
Shipping documentation from the same pull request as the code change using the rdme command line tool in CI

Where it falls short

Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about ReadMe.

Pricing is per project, so an organisation with several distinct APIs multiplies the monthly bill rather than adding seats, and the sensible workaround, merging unrelated APIs into one documentation project, distorts the information architecture to fit the invoice.
The metrics and personalisation features require your API to stream request logs to ReadMe, which means production request metadata leaves your infrastructure and needs a scrubbing layer plus a security review before anything is switched on.
Single sign-on and private documentation sit on the higher tier, so a company that only needs to gate partner documentation behind SAML pays a large step up for one control.
The platform is built for describing REST APIs, and long-form product manuals, internal knowledge bases or non-OpenAPI protocols fit it badly, so most customers end up running a second documentation tool alongside it.
Theming is bounded by ReadMe templates and limited custom CSS, so a documentation site that must match a strongly designed marketing site will not get there without compromise.
Content uses ReadMe-specific Markdown extensions and platform features, so migrating away is an export plus a rewrite rather than moving a folder of Markdown files.

Cross-shopped

What people choose instead of ReadMe

Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.

ReadMevs
Redocly
Redocly: If you want OpenAPI reference documentation from a docs-as-code pipeline you control, with self-hosted output
ReadMevs
GitBook
GitBook: If you need product documentation and knowledge base content as much as an API reference
ReadMevs
MkDocs
MkDocs: If the documentation should be a static site you build and host yourself with no per-project fee

Pricing

What ReadMe costs

Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.

Free

One project on a ReadMe subdomain
OpenAPI reference and guides
Basic editing and publishing

Startup

$99 /mo

One project
Custom domain
API metrics from request logs
Documentation versioning

Business

$399 /mo

One project
SAML single sign-on
Private and partner-only documentation
Staging before publish

Enterprise

On request

Multiple projects under one contract
Negotiated support and uptime terms
Security review and custom deployment questions
Pricing on application

Capabilities

Features

OpenAPI reference
Generates the endpoint reference from an uploaded or synchronised OpenAPI description
Try It playground
Sends real requests from the documentation page, prefilled with the reader API key where available
API metrics
Charts real traffic, error rates and endpoint use from request logs your API sends to ReadMe
Personalised docs
Shows a logged-in developer their own keys and recent request history alongside the reference
Versioning
Maintains parallel documentation versions matched to API versions, with a stable and a beta branch
Guides and recipes
Long-form Markdown pages and step-through tutorials that sit beside the generated reference
Git sync via rdme
Pushes Markdown and OpenAPI files from a repository so documentation ships with the code
Changelog and support widget
Dated release notes and an in-page support entry point tied to the documentation

Answered, with sources

Questions people ask

Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.

Is ReadMe priced per user?

No. It is priced per project, meaning per documented API. Team size does not change the bill, and a second API generally does.

Do I have to send my API logs to ReadMe?

Only for metrics and personalised documentation. The reference, guides and playground work without it, but the features that most distinguish the product are the ones that need the log stream.

Can I keep documentation in Git?

Yes. The rdme command line tool synchronises Markdown and OpenAPI files from a repository, so documentation can ship in the same pull request as the code.

Can I self-host it?

No. ReadMe is a hosted product only, so buyers with a hard on-premises requirement need a different platform.