When you sign up for an Intrinio account, you will receive two kinds of API keys, "Sandbox" and "Production".
These API keys are used to access financial data using our API, SDKs, Excel Add-in, or CSV Downloads. Depending on which type of API key you use, you will receive either a limited set of data (in the Sandbox) or a complete set of data (in Production).
When you use your "Sandbox" API key, you will receive limited data which can be used for developing, testing, and experimenting. The Sandbox has a large variety of data across most of our data feeds. This allows you to test each data feed without having to sign up for a trial or be limited by access restrictions. For more information on the Sandbox, click here.
When you use your "Production" API key, you will receive complete data corresponding to your data feed subscriptions.
As a developer, Susan is tasked with building a stock price widget for her company's website. First, she wants to build a simple proof-of-concept: a webpage showing her company's ticker and current stock price. So, Susan signs up for an Intrinio account and receives her "Sandbox" and "Production" API keys.
She uses her "Sandbox" API key to query the Companies endpoint, which returns companies listed on the DOW 30. Since her company is not listed on the DOW 30, she decides to pick AAPL to use an example.
Next, she uses her "Sandbox" API key to query the Stock Prices endpoint using the ticker AAPL. The API returns the latest stock prices for AAPL. Susan picks the latest stock price and renders it on her webpage. Now that Susan has a basic working example, she builds out a stock price widget using all of the required information, for her chosen example company AAPL. It looks great!
Susan now wants to demo the stock price widget to her bosses, but the data is showing AAPL's information, which is available in the Sandbox. Her own company is not available in the Sandbox, so she needs to get a subscription to Production.
Susan finds the "US Stock Prices" data feed in the Intrinio marketplace, which includes her own company's stock price information. She subscribes a paid plan appropriate for her use-case. Then she modifies her stock price widget to use her "Production" API key, and also to use her own company's ticker. It works! Her stock price widget now shows her actual company's stock price information.
Susan demos the stock price widget to her bosses. They are very impressed. Susan gets a promotion!
