The Hidden Cost of Free APIs

"It's free!" might be the most expensive phrase in software development. You find a free API that does exactly what you need. You integrate it over a weekend. It works. Ship it. Six months later, you're explaining to your boss why the feature is broken and nobody at the API provider is answering emails. Here's what that free API actually cost you. The Vanishing Act Free APIs disappear. Not sometimes — regularly. The maintainer gets a job and stops updating it. The startup behind it runs out of runway. The hobbyist project gets deprecated. Google kills another product. When a paid service shuts down, they usually give notice. They have contractual obligations. They have customers who pay money and will be upset. When a free service shuts down? You might get a tweet. Maybe. I've seen production systems break because a free API endpoint started returning 404 one Tuesday morning. No announcement. No migration path. Just gone. The cost: emergency weekend work to find an alternative, test it