FRED: Free Price and Economy Numbers for Small-Business Planning
FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) is a free online database run by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. In its own words, it holds "hundreds of thousands of economic data time series" from "scores of" public and private sources: prices, wages, jobs, interest rates, housing and more, including many city and state numbers.
Three ways to use it this week
- A bakery or diner can follow the U.S. average price of a dozen Grade A large eggs, month by month, before setting holiday menu prices.
- A roofer, remodeler or real-estate office can watch the weekly 30-year mortgage rate (series
MORTGAGE30US). - Anyone planning to hire can check the local unemployment rate. San Antonio's is series
SANA748URN; search FRED for your own metro area.
Try it now (no key, no account)
Open this link: fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.csv?id=APU0000708111
It downloads a small spreadsheet file (CSV) of the monthly average egg price from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. When we tried it on October 13, 2026, it ran from January 1980 to August 2026. Swap the code after id= for any other FRED series. To see a chart instead, open fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU0000708111.
Using it with AI
The St. Louis Fed runs an official FRED connector for AI assistants at mcp.stlouisfed.org. Its help page says "No FRED API key is required," but you do sign up for a free connector account. Then you can ask an assistant like Claude to pull and chart FRED numbers in a chat. FRED itself warns that "AI-generated analysis can contain mistakes," so check the numbers on the series page.
Limits and rules
- The website, charts and CSV downloads need no key.
- The FRED API (for apps that pull data on their own) needs an API key, and getting one requires a free FRED account (just an email and a password). The API terms list no fixed request limit, but say the Bank may set limits on bandwidth and the number of requests.
- Apps built on the API must show a short notice from FRED's API terms of use.
License and credit
Every series has its own copyright label, shown on its page:
- Public Domain: Citation Requested (the egg and San Antonio series): free to use; please credit the source.
- Copyrighted: Citation Required (the mortgage rate, from Freddie Mac): credit the source and FRED.
- Copyrighted: Pre-Approval Required: for anything beyond personal use, you must get permission from the data owner. FRED cannot give it.
FRED suggests a credit like "Source: BLS via FRED." Golden Rock can wire FRED charts into a client's website or app.
Who should care: owners who buy supplies, set prices or plan hiring.