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    How to use Modan

    Step-by-step guides for the full customer journey — from signup to a running API integration. Looking for endpoint documentation instead? That lives in the API reference.

    Signing up

    Create a Modan account and land in the terminal with a working API key — no card required.

    1. 1

      Create your account

      Go to modan.io/signup and register with your email and a password. If a teammate invited you, use the link in the invitation email — it pre-fills your email so your seat attaches to the right team when you register.

    2. 2

      You land in the terminal

      After signup you arrive in the terminal's API Keys tab, and your first API key is minted automatically — there is nothing to configure before your first request.

    3. 3

      What the free tier includes

      From day one: the full market data terminal, 14 rate checks a day on the web, and 50 API requests a day. Free-tier data is refreshed hourly — rates are served as of the top of the current UTC hour, and API responses say so explicitly (data_freshness: "hourly").

    Choosing a plan

    Free, Individual, or Team — what each costs, what each includes, and what the honest differences are.

    1. 1

      Free — evaluate the platform

      The terminal, 14 web rate checks a day, 50 API requests a day, hourly-refreshed data. No card, no time limit.

    2. 2

      Individual — one person, more depth

      $99/month (or $999/year). 100 web rate checks a day, 250 API requests a day, historical time series, email support. Data is still refreshed hourly — Individual is a bigger allowance, not a faster feed.

    3. 3

      Team — multi-user, real-time

      $299 per seat per month (or $2,999 per seat per year). Unlimited web rate checks, 1,000 API requests a day, real-time data with no hourly delay, team seats with roles, priority support. This is the only plan that serves rates the moment we observe them.

    4. 4

      Pick the plan on the pricing page

      Go to modan.io/pricing, choose monthly or annual billing, and check out through Stripe. Team plans let you choose the number of seats before checkout — the total updates as you change the count.

    The hourly delay on Free and Individual is deliberate and always disclosed — responses carry data_freshness and an as_of timestamp, so you always know exactly how fresh a rate is.

    Selecting seats on the Team plan

    Team pricing is per seat. Choose the count at checkout, and grow or shrink it later from the terminal.

    1. 1

      Choose the seat count at checkout

      On the Team card at modan.io/pricing, set the number of people who need access. The price is $299 per seat per month — three seats, for example, is $897/month. You (the owner) occupy the first seat.

    2. 2

      Add seats later, at the moment you need them

      Invite past your capacity in Account → Team and you'll be shown exactly what the next seat costs before anything is charged. Confirm, and the seat is added to your Stripe subscription with an immediate prorated charge for the remainder of the billing period.

    3. 3

      Reduce seats

      You can lower the seat count to any number at or above the seats currently in use — remove teammates first if you need to go lower. Reductions prorate as a credit on your next invoice.

    Using the Terminal

    The terminal at modan.io/app is keyboard-driven and built for corridor-level price discovery.

    1. 1

      The tabs

      Price Discovery is the live grid — every tracked provider's rate for the selected corridor. Analytics, Briefing, Alerts, Coverage Map and Market Intel are the analyst views. API Keys holds your keys and docs; Account holds your plan, billing and team.

    2. 2

      Arranged for your role

      The first time you open the terminal it asks whether you work at a central bank, in treasury, or as a developer, and arranges the default view, tab order and grid columns to match — a dispersion strip by rate type for central banks, a vs-mid column and fees for treasury, a cURL for the corridor on screen for developers. Nothing is hidden; only the defaults move. The answer is saved to your account, so you are asked once, and you can change it any time in Account → Profile.

    3. 3

      Keyboard shortcuts

      / focuses the currency search. ↑ ↓ move through the grid, Enter opens the selected provider in the inspector, Esc closes it. Ctrl/Cmd+E exports the current grid as CSV, and Ctrl/Cmd+K opens the command palette.

    4. 4

      Reading the numbers honestly

      spread_bps is how far a provider sits below the best rate of the same rate type in the corridor — an official central-bank reference is never ranked against a retail price. vs_mid_bps compares a provider against the independent mid-market reference where one exists. They answer different questions; the terminal keeps them separate on purpose.

    5. 5

      On mobile

      The dense grid is desktop-first. The API Keys and Account tabs work on any screen, so grabbing a key or opening your billing from a phone always works.

    Inviting and removing teammates

    Team owners and admins manage members from Account → Team. Invitations, roles, removals and leaving.

    1. 1

      Invite by email

      In Account → Team, enter your teammate's email, pick a role — Admin (can manage the team), Member, or Viewer — and send. They get an email link; when they sign up with that address, their seat activates and their API keys inherit the Team plan's allowance automatically.

    2. 2

      Invitations expire after 7 days

      An unaccepted invitation lapses after seven days and releases the seat it was holding. An expired address can simply be re-invited — the lapsed invitation is replaced.

    3. 3

      Remove a teammate

      Removing someone frees their seat immediately and drops their access to the free tier. Their Modan account survives — their keys, watchlists and alerts remain, at free-tier limits.

    4. 4

      Leaving a team yourself

      A member can leave without asking anyone: Account → Subscription → Leave this team. The seat goes back to the team and your account drops to the free tier at the same moment.

    Managing billing and subscription changes

    Cards, invoices, upgrades, downgrades and cancellation — all self-service from the Account tab.

    1. 1

      The billing portal

      Account → Subscription → Manage Billing opens your Stripe billing portal: update the card, download invoices, and cancel. Changes made there sync back to Modan automatically.

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      Upgrading

      Upgrade from the pricing page, or from the upgrade prompts in the terminal. A new plan takes effect immediately, and your API keys' allowance rises the moment payment completes.

    3. 3

      Cancelling

      Cancel in the billing portal. You keep full access until the end of the period you've paid for; after that the subscription ends and every key on the account returns to free-tier limits automatically. Nothing is deleted — data, keys and alerts all remain.

    4. 4

      Seat changes and proration

      Adding a seat mid-cycle invoices the prorated difference immediately; removing one credits it. Your seat count and plan stay in sync even when a change is made from the Stripe side.

    Creating and using developer keys

    API keys live in the terminal's API Keys tab. One header, JSON responses, honest freshness labels.

    1. 1

      Your first key is already there

      Signing up mints a free API key automatically — open API Keys → My Keys at modan.io/app/api to see it, create more, or revoke one. A revoked key stops working immediately.

    2. 2

      Authenticate with one header

      Send the key as X-API-Key against https://modan.io/api/v1 — for example GET /api/v1/rates?from=GBP&to=NGN. Full endpoint reference, parameters and code samples live at modan.io/docs/api.

    3. 3

      Know your allowance

      Every response carries X-RateLimit-Limit, X-RateLimit-Remaining and X-RateLimit-Reset headers, and a data_freshness field that tells you whether the rate is hourly or realtime. The daily allowance is shared across all keys on your account: free 50 / Individual 250 / Team 1,000 requests per UTC day.

    4. 4

      AI agents can call Modan natively

      The MCP server at https://modan.io/api/mcp exposes the same data as tools for Claude, Cursor and any MCP client, using the same key and the same daily quota.

    Free-tier limits and upgrading

    What happens when you hit the free allowance, and exactly how to get more.

    1. 1

      The free allowance

      50 API requests and 14 web rate checks per UTC day. Both reset at midnight UTC.

    2. 2

      What hitting the limit looks like

      API request 26 returns 429 Rate limit exceeded with the limit and the reset time in the body and headers — your integration can back off cleanly. We also email you (once per day, not per request) so a quiet script doesn't fail silently overnight.

    3. 3

      Getting more

      Upgrade at modan.io/pricing: Individual raises you to 250 requests a day for $99/month; Team raises you to 1,000 a day with real-time data at $299 per seat. The new allowance applies to your existing keys the moment checkout completes — no new key needed.

    Usage never overdraws: requests beyond the limit are refused, not billed. There are no overage charges on any plan.

    Still stuck?

    For the market itself — what the official and parallel naira rates mean, how spread is measured, how remittance providers price — see the guides.

    Email support@modan.io and a human will get back to you. For integration detail, the API reference covers every endpoint.