Samsung to charge individual developers for SmartThings API access

Samsung to charge individual developers for SmartThings API access

Samsung will begin charging for access to its SmartThings API in October 2026, moving away from a historically free model to a structured payment system. The change introduces a personal plan for non-commercial individual developers priced at $4.99 or $5 monthly, depending on the reported figure.

While the standard SmartThings consumer app remains free, the new subscription costs target third-party integrations, software developers, and commercial partners. This policy shift primarily affects those who use the API as a backend layer for custom dashboards, energy monitoring tools, rental-property systems, and advanced automation stacks.

The move has sparked concern within the open-source smart-home community. Paulus Schoutsen, founder of the open-source platform Home Assistant, stated in a blog post that the use of the Home Assistant integration will be affected by these changes and will fall under the new personal plans.

"We're all for choice, but feel very disappointed that users will have to decide whether to shell out for access in the shadow of yet another cloud paywall,"

Paulus Schoutsen, founder of Home Assistant, via blog post

Samsung says the new pricing is designed to allow the company to invest heavily in the enterprise-grade features our partners and users have been asking for. These promised improvements include new integrations, increased platform stability, and expanded capabilities.

To support this transition, Samsung is launching a new Developer Center and an API Usage Dashboard. This hub will provide developers with current usage and data points, including flexible time-series views and call volume tracking, to help them optimize code and determine which pricing tier fits their needs.

The decision reflects a broader industry trend toward monetizing developer ecosystems, similar to the tiered pricing models used by Twilio and Amazon Web Services. By transforming the SmartThings ecosystem from a cost center into a revenue-generating asset, Samsung may be attempting to create a data moat around its device information.

This financial shift comes as Samsung aggressively updates the SmartThings platform to compete with Google Home and Amazon Alexa. Recent upgrades leverage Galaxy AI to simplify the user experience. These include:

• Routine Creation Assistant: Allows users to configure complex routines through natural language requests rather than navigating menus.
• Confirm to Run Actions: Adds a verification layer to ensure conditions are met—such as confirming a house is empty—before arming security systems.
• Virtual Home: A feature, previously in beta, that lets users test how smart gadgets interact in a virtual environment via the app or a dedicated web portal.
• SmartThings Find: Now allows users to send a link to friends and family to help locate lost items from any device, including iPhones.

Other updates include a faster Apple Watch app and the expansion of the Calm Onboarding feature, which is growing from availability in 14 countries to 58. The platform now boasts more than 460 million registered users and hundreds of partner brands.

The transition may drive some developers toward platform-agnostic middleware services that abstract individual vendor APIs to avoid multiple subscription fees. For early-stage IoT SaaS products, these new direct costs could compress margins during the search for product-market fit.

Free access to the API will remain available through the third quarter of 2026. Samsung will not apply usage limits or phase out free access until October 2026.