Free for the public. Licensed for business.

ERstat's emergency-room data is free for Canadians, newsrooms, researchers and community sites. If you're building a commercial product on it, a commercial license keeps it reliable, gives you the rights and history you need, and helps fund the coverage.

Free

Personal & non-commercial

Personal, journalistic, academic, and civic use.

  • Live status — widget & RSS (no key), plus the JSON API (free key required): current closures, reopenings, disruptions, coverage. Get a free API key →
  • Attribution required — a visible credit linking back to erstat.ca.
  • Rate-limited, provided as-is, no SLA.
  • No historical or bulk data.
Commercial

For products & organizations

Anything for-profit or revenue-supporting.

  • Commercial-use rights — use the data in your product or operations.
  • History & bulk export — years of closures and wait data.
  • Reliability — uptime SLA, support, version guarantees.
  • Scale — higher limits and webhooks/push instead of polling.
  • Enrichment & indemnity — normalized/forecast data and a signed agreement.

How to attribute (free tier)

Include a visible credit that links to the source. The embed widget already does this; if you use the API or RSS directly, add something like:

<a href="https://erstat.ca/feed">Live ER status by ERstat</a>

Frequently asked questions

Is the data really free?

Yes — for personal, journalistic, academic, civic, and other non-commercial use, with attribution and a link back to erstat.ca. The live widget, RSS, and the free API endpoints are all free under those terms.

What counts as commercial use?

Using the data in a for-profit product or service, internal business operations, paid research, or anything you charge for or that supports revenue. If you are building a business on it, you need a commercial license.

You can’t copyright facts — so what am I paying for?

Correct, individual facts aren’t copyrightable. A commercial license buys what the free tier deliberately doesn’t include: commercial-use rights, historical and bulk data, an uptime SLA and support, higher rate limits, webhooks/push delivery, enrichment, and indemnification under a signed agreement.

How do I attribute on the free tier?

Show a visible credit linking to the source — for example, “Live ER status by ERstat” linking to https://erstat.ca/feed. The embed widget includes this automatically.

Do researchers and newsrooms pay?

No — academic research and journalism fall under the free, non-commercial tier. Reach out if you need bulk/historical access for a study and we’ll help.

Building something commercial, or not sure which tier you fall under? Get in touch — we're easy to work with.