# Channel3 for Developers Channel3 is an API to find products and earn on sales. Build AI shopping assistants, recommendation engines, product search, comparison tools, chatbots, browser extensions, wishlists, and embedded commerce — with structured product data, merchant offers, and monetizable purchase links from one platform. **Primary page:** https://trychannel3.com/developers **Sign up:** https://trychannel3.com/sign-up/developer **Docs:** https://docs.trychannel3.com/ ## Highlights - Access **100 million+ products** from **25,000+ brands** through one API. - Search via natural language or image; filter by brand, category, retailer, price, availability, and attributes. - Many offers include commission rates — earn when users buy. Tracking and payouts are built in. - p50 search latency around **800ms**. Catalog is continuously refreshed. ## Why Channel3 instead of web search or scraping Generic web search APIs return blog listicles, reviews, and HTML — not structured products with prices, offers, and buy links. Scraping is fragile and expensive; retailer integrations are hard to maintain; product data is inconsistent across the web. Channel3 provides one normalized, structured product graph so you can focus on building your application instead of maintaining data pipelines. ## API surface ### Search — `/search` Find almost any product online via natural language or image. Add filters to constrain results. Each query returns ranked results with offers and monetizable links. Docs: https://docs.trychannel3.com/guides/make-a-search ### Lookup — `/lookup` Pass any product URL and get structured metadata: pricing, variants, images, and merchant offers in a single response. Docs: https://docs.trychannel3.com/guides/url-lookup ### Checkout — `/checkout` (coming soon) Buy from merchants programmatically. One API, from cart to confirmation. Request early access: mailto:support@trychannel3.com?subject=Early%20Access%3A%20Checkout ## What the API returns Product titles, descriptions, images, brands, categories, product attributes, pricing, availability, retailer links, and monetizable purchase links. ## Monetization Many product offers include a commission rate. When your users buy through Channel3 commission-earning links, you earn. Channel3 handles tracking and retailer relationships — no separate network integrations required. - Commission FAQ: https://docs.trychannel3.com/faq/commissions - Browse rates: https://trychannel3.com/dashboard/brands ## What you can build - **Outfit finder** — Upload a look and find matching pieces across the catalog. - **Image search** — Turn any photo or screenshot into product results across 100M+ items. - **Price tracking** — Watch products and notify shoppers when the price drops. - **Deal finder** — Rank offers across merchants and surface the best price with commission-earning links built in. - AI shopping assistants, recommendation engines, comparison tools, chatbots, browser extensions, wishlists, and embedded commerce. ## How to get started 1. Create a developer account and generate an API key: https://trychannel3.com/sign-up/developer 2. Authenticate with the `x-api-key` header. 3. Call Search or Lookup; use TypeScript or Python SDKs if preferred. **Quickstart for coding agents:** ``` Build a shopping experience using the Channel3 skill, Channel3 SDK, and Channel3 UI components/hooks. 1. Install the skill: npx skills add channel3-ai/skills --skill channel3-api 2. Add the components: npx shadcn@latest add https://ui.trychannel3.com/r/all.json 3. Build: text and image search with filters at the top. Show results in a grid; clicking a product opens a PDP with variant selection, similar products, and a way back to the grid. Monetize with the commission-earning links returned on every offer. ``` ## SDKs, UI, and agent tools - [SDKs](https://docs.trychannel3.com/sdk): TypeScript and Python - [Channel3 CLI](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@channel3/cli): Official CLI (`@channel3/cli`). Distinct from the shadcn CLI used for Channel3 UI components. - [CLI docs](https://docs.trychannel3.com/cli.md) - [Channel3 UI components](https://trychannel3.com/developers/ui): Open-source React shopping components (search, PDP, hooks) via shadcn CLI - [UI registry](https://ui.trychannel3.com/r/registry.json) - [MCP overview](https://docs.trychannel3.com/mcp-overview): Add Channel3 to Cursor, VS Code, Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, and OpenCode - [MCP server](https://mcp.trychannel3.com/): Streamable HTTP MCP for product discovery - [OpenAPI spec](https://api.trychannel3.com/openapi.json) - [Price tracking webhooks](https://docs.trychannel3.com/price-tracking-webhooks) - Free tier: 1,000 searches per month, no credit card required. Sign up: https://trychannel3.com/sign-up/developer. Current limits: https://docs.trychannel3.com/pricing ## FAQs (summary) - **What is Channel3?** An API to find products and earn on sales — for AI shopping apps, recommendations, search, comparison, and embedded commerce. - **What data?** Titles, descriptions, images, brands, categories, attributes, pricing, availability, retailer links, monetizable purchase links. - **Catalog freshness?** Continuously refreshed for pricing, availability, and product info. - **Earn commissions?** Yes — monetizable purchase links; rates and FAQ in the docs. - **Retailers/brands?** 25,000+ brands including Walmart, Net-A-Porter, The RealReal, Best Buy, CVS, Staples. Contact us for specific brands or markets. - **Filters?** Brand, category, retailer, price, availability, color, and other attributes. - **vs scraping?** One structured product graph instead of fragile scrapers and per-retailer integrations. - **Get started?** Sign up, get an API key, start building. Enterprise deployments: contact the team. ## Related resources - [Channel3 auth.md](https://trychannel3.com/auth.md): API key authentication and registration - [API catalog](https://trychannel3.com/.well-known/api-catalog): Machine-readable API discovery (RFC 9727) - [MCP server card](https://trychannel3.com/.well-known/mcp/server-card.json): MCP server discovery metadata - [Channel3 llms.txt](https://trychannel3.com/llms.txt): Site index for agents - [Documentation llms.txt](https://docs.trychannel3.com/llms.txt): Complete docs index for agents - [Developer documentation](https://docs.trychannel3.com/): API reference and guides - [Contact](https://trychannel3.com/contact) - [Deprecation policy](https://trychannel3.com/deprecation.md)