WHOIS API

A WHOIS API built on RDAP, the structured successor to the whois protocol. Pass up to 25 domains and each resolves through its TLD's authoritative registry into one row: registrar with its IANA id, creation, expiry and last-update dates, EPP status codes, delegated nameservers and whether the DNSSEC delegation is signed. Domains that fail to resolve are reported under failed and never billed.

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$0.0005 per delivered domain · $2 free every month · Failed runs never billed

POST /v1/scraper/collectors/whois_domain/run

$ curl $QD/whois_domain/run \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $QD_API_KEY" \
    -d '{}'
{ "status": "done", "count": 10,
  "results": [
    {
      "domain": "…",
      "registrar": "…",
      "registrar_iana_id": "…",
      "created": "…" } ],
  "cost": 0.005 }
# 10 domains × $0.0005 · nothing delivered, nothing charged

$0.0005 / domain4,000 domains on the free $2 every month

Semantic inputdomains, max_results — no URL lists

Up to 25domains per run, pagination handled for you

No browserread over HTTP/TLS — cheaper and faster than rendering

What a WHOIS API does

Classic port-43 whois is free and useless at scale: every registry formats its text differently, and the ports are throttled. An RDAP API answers the same domain lookup in structured JSON from the authoritative source — dates as dates, status as codes — and this routes each TLD to the right registry through rdap.org so you never maintain a server list.

Bulk WHOIS is the actual workload: a list of domains in one call, each row ready to score. created gives domain age for fraud and lead models, expires drives renewal monitoring, status exposes transfer locks, and nameservers plus dnssec sketch the infrastructure — five signals from one lookup.

What one domain looks like

Every delivered domain carries these fields. Nullable means the source did not publish it — the field stays empty instead of being guessed.

Field	Type	What it holds
`rank`	integer	1-based position.
`domain`	string	Domain.
`registrar`	string · nullable	Registrar name.
`registrar_iana_id`	string · nullable	IANA registrar id.
`created`	string · nullable	Registration date.
`expires`	string · nullable	Expiration date.
`updated`	string · nullable	Last change.
`status`	string[]	EPP status codes.
`nameservers`	string[]	Delegated nameservers.
`dnssec`	boolean · nullable	DNSSEC delegation signed.
`url`	string	RDAP record URL.

Inputs

The whole request. Anything you leave out falls back to the default shown in the catalog.

Input	Type	Required	What it does
`domains`	array	yes	Bare domains or URLs.
`max_results`	integer	no	How many domains to deliver at most (1–25). You pay only for delivered domains.

Pricing

WHOIS API pricing

$0.0005 per delivered domain. A run that delivers nothing costs nothing: blocked pages, challenges and retries are on us, and the $2 monthly allowance covers about 4,000 domains before you spend anything.

$0.0005per delivered domain$0.5 per 1,000 delivered domains

4,000 domainson the free allowance$2 every month, no card

Zero rowszero chargeblocks, captchas and retries are on us

−30%on volume tiersthe catalog returns your key's price

Pay as you go

$0/mo

$2 free credit / month
60 requests / min
List unit prices

Starter

$19/mo

$15 free credit / month
300 requests / min
10% off unit prices

Growth

$79/mo

$50 free credit / month
600 requests / min
20% off unit prices

Scale

$299/mo

$250 free credit / month
1,200 requests / min
30% off unit prices

Same wallet, same key and same $2 monthly allowance as every other Data API. Prices are launch pricing read live from the billing config — GET /v1/scraper/collectors returns the price your key actually pays.

Integration

One POST, typed rows

Base URL https://api.quanticdata.io/v1, Bearer auth, the same key as every other Data API. Endpoint: POST /v1/scraper/collectors/whois_domain/run.

curl -X POST https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/whois_domain/run \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $QD_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{}'

import requests

r = requests.post(
    "https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/whois_domain/run",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {QD_API_KEY}"},
    json={},
    timeout=120,
)
for row in r.json()["payload"]["results"]:
    print(row)

const res = await fetch(
  "https://api.quanticdata.io/v1/scraper/collectors/whois_domain/run",
  {
    method: "POST",
    headers: {
      Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.QD_API_KEY}`,
      "Content-Type": "application/json",
    },
    body: JSON.stringify({}),
  },
);
const { payload } = await res.json();
console.table(payload.results);

claude mcp add quantumproxies \
  -e QUANTUMPROXIES_API_KEY=qd_live_your_key_here \
  -- npx -y quantumproxies-mcp

# then, in the chat:
> run the whois_domain collector with

What people build with the WHOIS API

Three shapes of work this endpoint was designed around.

Domain-age scoring

Join the created date onto signup or lead data — a domain registered last week reads very differently from one registered in 2009.

Expiry monitoring

Sweep a portfolio and sort by expires to see which registrations need attention, with the registrar on the same row.

Infrastructure attribution

Registrar and nameserver columns group a set of domains by operator, which is how related sites cluster in an investigation.

WHOIS API versus rolling your own

The differences that actually cost time when you build this in-house.

	DIY scraper	This collector
Source protocol	Port-43 text, a different format per registry	RDAP JSON from the authoritative registry
Bulk lookups	One domain at a time against throttled ports	Up to 25 domains per call, failures unbilled
Registry routing	Track each TLD's server yourself	Resolved automatically through rdap.org

FAQ

Questions we get about the WHOIS API.

Something else? Ask us →

Is there a free WHOIS API behind this?

The registries' RDAP endpoints are open at origin, yes — the work this sells is the routing, the normalising and the row shape. You send domains, you get uniform registration rows, and domains that do not resolve cost nothing.

What is RDAP and why use it instead of classic WHOIS?

RDAP is the IETF's replacement for the whois protocol: the same registration data, served as structured JSON by each TLD's authoritative registry rather than as throttled free text on port 43. That is what makes fields like created and status storable without a parser per registry.

Does the row include the domain owner's contact details?

No — rows carry the registrar, the dates, EPP status codes, nameservers and the DNSSEC flag. Registrant contact data is redacted by most registries these days, so no collector can honestly promise it, and this one does not.

Is there a free WHOIS API?

Every account gets $2 of credit every month with no card, which is about 4,000 delivered domains on this endpoint at $0.0005 each. It renews monthly, and a run that delivers nothing is never billed — so a failed or blocked attempt does not eat the allowance.

How much does one run cost?

Multiply the rows you actually receive by $0.0005. A run capped at 25 domains — the maximum for this collector — costs $0.013 if every row comes back, and less when the source has fewer. Volume tiers take up to 30% off, and GET /v1/scraper/collectors returns the price your key actually pays.

Run the WHOIS API now

$2 of free credit every month, no card. Your key returns its own prices from GET /v1/scraper/collectors.

Get my free API key