FAQ

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Getting started

What is VerveSheets?

281 sources across 24 categories, reachable from a cell. Weather, exchange rates, metal and crypto prices, geolocation, timezones, DNS and domain checks, translation and text tooling. The point is that adding the second source costs nothing beyond the first: same function, same account, same credits.

How do I get an API key?

Sign up at dashboard.vervesheets.com and a key is generated for you. It is on the API keys page. No credit card, and the free plan has calls in it immediately.

How quickly can I get started?

A few minutes. Quickstart is install, connect, and one formula — there is nothing to configure and nothing to write.

Do I need to know how to code?

No. If you can write =SUM(), you can write =VERVE(). The sidebar will even write it for you: pick a source and the value you want, and it drops the formula into the selected cell. See the sidebar.

Does the same thing work in Excel and Google Sheets?

Yes, from the same account and the same key. The only difference is the name — Excel puts the functions in a namespace, so =VERVE() is =VERVE.CALL() there. Arguments, ranges, errors and billing are identical. See formulas.

Is there a free tier?

Yes, and it is a real plan rather than a timed trial — it renews every month:

Do I need a credit card to sign up?

No. Payment details are only needed to move to a paid plan.

Can I use VerveSheets for commercial projects?

Yes, on a paid plan. See pricing for the terms attached to each plan.

Is there a sandbox or test environment?

There is no separate sandbox, because there is no separate behaviour to test against — every source works identically on every plan, so the free plan is the test environment.

Keys and security

How do I authenticate?

Once, in the sidebar — sign in, or paste a key. After that every formula in every workbook uses that connection, and no key ever appears in a cell. See authentication.

Can I have more than one key?

Every account has one primary key. Sub-keys are additional credentials that bill to the same account and can be scoped and revoked independently — the right tool for a per-environment or per-client credential.

Can I regenerate my key?

Yes, from the API keys page. Rotation is instant and there is no grace period: the old key stops working the moment the new one exists, so update your applications first rather than after.

What do I do if my key is exposed?

Rotate it immediately, which invalidates the old one at once. Then check analytics for usage you do not recognise — that is the clearest sign someone else has been using it. If the key was committed to a repository, remember it is still in the history after you delete the line.

If you connected by signing in rather than pasting a key, there was never a copy of the key to expose — which is the main reason to prefer it.

Is my data secure?

Requests are TLS-encrypted and plain HTTP is not served. We keep metadata about calls — timestamp, source, status — because that is what analytics and support are built from. Request and response bodies are not retained beyond serving the request.

Can I restrict what a key can do?

Yes. Key scoping blocks specific sources, and on Mega you can also allow-list IPs and cap a key's own rate limit. Worth doing for anything running outside your own infrastructure.

Credits and billing

What is a credit?

The unit of usage. Most calls cost one credit; heavier ones cost more, and each reference page states its own cost. Failed calls are not billed — if the call errors, no credit is taken.

Do formulas keep spending credits?

A live =VERVE() formula spends a credit each time it recalculates, because each recalculation is a fresh lookup. That is what you want for a number that should stay current, and not what you want for a column you enriched once — for that, use the sidebar's Values fill, which writes static answers and never charges again. See the sidebar.

If I share a workbook, whose credits does it spend?

The owner's — the credential running the formulas is the one the owner connected. A collaborator who wants their own billing installs the add-in and connects on their own account.

What happens when I run out?

Calls are refused with a message saying the monthly credit limit has been reached. Credits return on your renewal date, or you can upgrade for an immediate increase.

When do credits reset?

On your renewal date each month — signup anniversary on the free plan, subscription anniversary on a paid one. The exact date is in analytics.

Do unused credits roll over?

No. Each cycle starts fresh at your plan's allowance.

Can I see my usage?

Yes — in analytics. Pro and Mega also get the daily trend and the per-source breakdown.

What do the plans cost?

Current details are on pricing.

Can I change plan mid-cycle?

Yes. Upgrades apply immediately and are prorated; downgrades apply at the next cycle, so you keep what you have already paid for.

What payment methods do you take?

Major credit and debit cards, processed by Stripe. Enterprise customers can arrange invoicing — ask.

Do you offer refunds?

There is a 30-day money-back guarantee. Contact support and we will sort it out.

Can I cancel?

Any time, from billing. Access continues to the end of the period you have paid for, and the account then reverts to the free plan rather than being closed.

Technical

What are the rate limits?

A per-minute ceiling per plan, plus a limit on how many calls may be in flight at once:

A batched fill counts as one call against that ceiling however many rows it covers, which is one more reason to prefer a range over a column of separate formulas. See rate limits.

How do I handle errors?

A cell that fails holds text beginning with #ERR, followed by the reason — a missing input, an option name that does not exist, a data point that is not in the response. #PREMIUM(field) means the lookup worked and your plan withholds that value.

They are text rather than real spreadsheet errors, so IFERROR() will not catch them; test for the #ERR prefix instead. Errors lists every message and what to do about it.

What is the average response time?

It varies by source, and each reference page shows its own typical latency. Live figures are on status.apiverve.com.

What is the uptime?

We target 99.9%. status.apiverve.com carries live status, history and maintenance notices.

Is there documentation for every source?

Yes. Every source has a reference page with its parameters, response fields, credit cost, typical latency and worked examples. Browse them from the catalog.

When something is wrong

Every cell says the same thing and refilling does not help

A whole column of one message is almost always one cause, not many: a disconnected credential, a misspelled source name, or an exhausted balance. The credit meter and the status dot at the top of the sidebar answer the first and third at a glance.

Refilling in that state spends nothing — failed calls are not billed — but it also changes nothing. Fix the cause, then refill once.

A source is in the catalog but my formula says it does not exist

Check the id rather than the title. =VERVE() takes the source's id — weatherforecast, not "Weather Forecast" — and the sidebar's formula preview always has the right one. Ids are lowercase with no spaces.

A source is in the catalog but returns "not found"

Each brand serves its own subset, and a source that is not part of the door you are on behaves exactly like one that does not exist. That is deliberate: the answer does not reveal what you cannot reach. The catalog on this site is this door's catalog, so anything listed here is available to you.

A field the documentation mentions is missing

Premium fields are absent on plans that do not include them, rather than present and empty. That is deliberate: absent is unambiguous, whereas an empty value could mean "we looked and found nothing".

Rather than leave the cell blank, the add-in says so: #PREMIUM(score).

Each reference page marks which fields are premium.

My integration broke suddenly and nothing changed on my side

The usual cause is a key rotation — it takes effect instantly and everywhere, so a rotation done for one system silently breaks every other system holding that key.

A pasted key has to be re-pasted on every device you use. A connection made by signing in does not — one more reason to prefer it.

A value is cut off with "… [truncated]"

Some sources return more text than a cell can hold — about 50,000 characters in Sheets, 32,767 in Excel. Rather than fail the whole call and lose a result you have paid for, the value is clipped and marked. Use "field" to pick a smaller part of the response instead.

Account and support

What happens to my data if I downgrade or cancel?

The account reverts to the free plan rather than being deleted, and your key keeps working at free-plan limits. Features above that plan stop being available — sub-keys beyond the free allowance, the detailed analytics breakdown — but nothing is destroyed, and upgrading again restores access.

How do I upgrade?

From plans in the dashboard. It takes effect immediately.

Do you offer enterprise plans?

Yes — custom limits, SLA terms and dedicated support. Talk to us.

Can I request a new source?

Please do. Tell us what you need and what you would use it for. The use case matters more than the name, and a good one moves it up the list.

How do I delete my account?

Contact support and we will remove it, as described in the privacy policy.

How do I get help?

apiverve.com/contact — usually within a day on business days. For anything that looks like an outage, check status.apiverve.com first.

Next

Formulas is the full function reference, and the sidebar covers doing it all without typing.

Quickstart is the fastest first call, and the glossary explains the terms used across these pages.