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Our verdict
The go-to source for crypto social data: huge coverage, well-known metrics, and first-class access for AI models through MCP. It loses points for opaque scoring formulas, a minimum of $72 a month with no trial, and a weak Trustpilot record tied to a past rewards programme.
Best for: Developers and AI-agent builders who need social sentiment data, and altcoin traders who trade attention shifts.
Key takeaways
- LunarCrush tracks 100M+ social posts a day, 10M+ creators and 6,000+ assets (4,000+ crypto, 2,000+ stocks).
- Galaxy Score and AltRank condense social and market data into one number each. The weights are not published.
- Paid plans are API plans: Light $90/mo ($72 annually), Medium $300, Heavy $900. No free trial.
- Every paid tier includes API, MCP and CLI access, so Claude and other models can query LunarCrush directly.
This LunarCrush review is for traders who suspect that crypto prices, especially altcoin prices, move on attention as much as on fundamentals. LunarCrush built its business on that idea. Since 2018 it has been counting and scoring what people post about coins, and its Galaxy Score and AltRank have become familiar labels across crypto Twitter and even TradingView.
The product has shifted, though. Paid plans are now essentially data and API plans aimed at developers and AI agents, not consumer dashboards. Here is what you get, what it costs, and whether LunarCrush sentiment data is worth paying for. Facts were checked on LunarCrush's own pages on 21 October 2026.
LunarCrush review at a glance
| Item | What we found |
|---|---|
| Official site | lunarcrush.com ↗ |
| What it is | Social intelligence data for crypto and stocks |
| Data sources | X, Reddit, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, news |
| Scale | 100M+ posts/day, 10M+ creators, 6,000+ assets and topics |
| Signature metrics | Galaxy Score, AltRank, social volume, sentiment |
| AI type | LLM access: MCP server, API v4, CLI |
| Price | Free account; paid from $90/mo or $72/mo annually |
| Trial | None on paid plans; Enterprise trials available |
| Founded | 2018 |
What LunarCrush is
LunarCrush is a social listening engine tuned for markets. It ingests public posts, matches them to assets and topics, and scores them for volume, engagement and sentiment. On top of that sit composite metrics such as Galaxy Score and AltRank, plus rankings of creators by influence. The about page describes 100M+ posts a day, 10M+ creators indexed, and 6,000+ assets and topics: 4,000+ cryptocurrencies, 2,000+ stocks and 50+ categories.
The value is breadth. Few other tools cover TikTok and YouTube alongside X and Reddit, and few cover thousands of small-cap coins. If a memecoin is suddenly everywhere, LunarCrush is likely to show it early.
Galaxy Score and AltRank, explained honestly
Galaxy Score
Galaxy Score is an absolute "health" score for an asset. Public descriptions, including TradingView's help page, list four ingredients: price trend, social sentiment, social coverage and interactions, and how closely social indicators correlate with price and volume. A high score means a coin is both talked about positively and moving in a way that matches the chatter.
AltRank
AltRank is relative. It ranks an asset's combined social and market activity against everything else LunarCrush tracks at that moment, with rank 1 being the strongest. LunarCrush's own blog suggests watching the movement of the rank more than the number: an asset jumping from around 639 to 50 is gaining attention faster than its peers.
How the AI works (and how much of it is AI)
There are two AI-related layers. The first is the scoring pipeline itself: classifying millions of posts by asset and sentiment requires natural-language processing, and LunarCrush says each post goes through multiple processing layers. The details are proprietary. The second, newer layer is access for language models. LunarCrush launched REST API v4 in 2024 and an MCP server for Claude and Claude Code in 2025, and all paid tiers list "LunarCrush + LLMs" with API, MCP and CLI access.
That second layer is where LunarCrush is most useful in 2026. Rather than learning another dashboard, you connect it to Claude or another MCP-capable assistant and ask, for example, which mid-cap coins saw the biggest rise in social volume this week and whether sentiment turned negative on any of them. The model fetches live data and reasons over it. LunarCrush itself does not place trades, and it does not need exchange keys.
We label it "LLM assistant" rather than ML or agent: the AI helps you query and interpret data; it does not forecast prices or act for you.
Pricing and API limits
| Plan | Monthly billing | Annual (per month) | API limits | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Light | $90/mo | $72/mo | 10 req/min, 2,000/day | |
| Medium | $300/mo | $240/mo | 100 req/min, 20,000/day, all endpoints, advanced MCP | |
| Heavy | $900/mo | $720/mo | 500 req/min, 100,000/day | |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom; trials available |
Two details are worth knowing. Requests over your limit return an HTTP 429 error and are not billed, so there is no surprise overage bill. And there is no free trial on paid plans, which is unusual at this price. Value scores are our editorial view. For a single trader asking an AI a handful of questions a day, Light's 2,000 daily requests are plenty. Medium makes sense if you build an agent or dashboard that polls many assets.
Beware older third-party pages quoting different prices, from "$5 a day" to "$49 a month". Those reflect earlier plans. The figures above are from the official pricing page in October 2026.
What the free account still gives you
A free account shows market data and 1-hour and 24-hour social sentiment on the Discover page. That is enough to check whether a coin you are watching is trending and whether the tone is positive or negative. It is not enough for systematic use: no API, no history to backtest, no MCP. If you just want an occasional sentiment check, free plus a general AI model like Grok for X chatter covers most needs. Our sentiment tools comparison shows the alternatives.
Security and data quality
Security risk is low by design. LunarCrush is a data provider: it never needs your exchange keys or wallet, and the worst case of a leaked LunarCrush API key is someone using your request quota. Keep the key out of public code and rotate it if it leaks.
Data quality is the real concern. Social data is noisy and easy to game. Bot networks, paid shills and coordinated campaigns can inflate social volume and sentiment for small coins, and a scoring model can only partly filter that out. LunarCrush does not publish how it filters bots. The larger and older a coin's community, the more trustworthy its social metrics tend to be; for brand-new tokens, assume some of the noise is manufactured.
Company, founders and complaints
LunarCrush was founded in 2018 by CEO Joe Vezzani, with co-founders Dan Williams (CTO) and Jonathan Farjo (CPO). The about page describes a small, distributed team. Eight years in, it is one of the longest-running sentiment providers still operating, which counts for something in a category where several competitors have gone quiet.
Its Trustpilot record is poor. On 21 October 2026 LunarCrush had a TrustScore of 1.6 out of 5 from 35 reviews, 66% of them one-star. Most complaints concern account bans and being unable to withdraw rewards or tokens, which relate to a past rewards programme rather than the data product, plus a couple of reports of charges after cancelling a subscription. Only one review was posted in the last 12 months, the profile is unclaimed, and Trustpilot shows its "may be associated with high-risk investments" warning. Trustpilot does not fact-check reviews. The billing complaints are the relevant ones today: track your renewal date.
Pros and cons
What works
- Largest crypto social dataset we found: 100M+ posts a day
- Covers TikTok and YouTube as well as X and Reddit
- 4,000+ coins plus 2,000+ stocks
- Clean API, MCP server and CLI on every paid tier
- Over-limit requests are not billed
- No exchange keys or wallet access required
Watch out for
- Galaxy Score and AltRank weights are not published
- Paid plans start at $72/mo annually, with no trial
- Paid tiers are data plans, not consumer dashboards
- Bot filtering methods are undisclosed
- Weak Trustpilot record, mostly from a past rewards scheme
Who LunarCrush suits
LunarCrush is worth paying for if you build AI agents, dashboards or bots that need sentiment as an input, or if you trade altcoins and memecoins where attention moves price. Quant traders who want to test sentiment as a feature in a model, for example inside Freqtrade's FreqAI, will find the API the cleanest source. It is hard to justify for long-term BTC and ETH holders, who will learn more from on-chain cycle metrics, or for anyone who checks sentiment once a week. If what you really want is automation, LunarCrush will not trade for you; compare the best AI crypto trading bots instead.
LunarCrush alternatives
| Tool | Focus | Price from | Choose it if |
|---|---|---|---|
| Santimentsantiment.net ↗ | Social + on-chain + dev data | Free, Pro $49/mo | You want sentiment and on-chain together, cheaper |
| Kaitokaito.ai ↗ | Narrative mindshare | Not published | You trade narratives; product in flux |
| The TIEthetie.io ↗ | Institutional sentiment API | Sales only | You run a fund and need point-in-time history |
| Grokgrok.com ↗ | Live X search | $8/mo | You only need a quick read of crypto Twitter |
The closest head-to-head is our Santiment review. For wallet-level data rather than social data, see Nansen AI. And if you want sentiment turned into trade ideas, read about where AI crypto trading signals come from before paying anyone for them.
Sentiment tells you what is hot. A regulated exchange keeps you safe while you act on it.
LunarCrush never touches your funds, so the venue you trade on carries the custody risk. CEX.IO has operated since 2013, is a FinCEN-registered MSB with money transmitter licences in 39 US states plus DC, and is FCA-registered in the UK. Use social data to find ideas and a regulated account to buy and hold.
Registrations checked October 2026 on the company's legal pages. Availability depends on your country; crypto is high-risk.
- Since 2013One of the longest-running crypto exchanges still operating
source - 39 US states + DCFinCEN-registered MSB with state money transmitter licences (NMLS 1804170)
source - FCA-registeredUK cryptoasset business under the MLRs, FRN 1007192
source - PCI DSS Level 1Card-payment security standard, 2026 certificate published
source
How to use LunarCrush well
Start with the free Discover page
Watch 1h and 24h sentiment on coins you already follow for a couple of weeks. Note how often spikes come before, during or after price moves.
Decide what question you need answered
Screening for rising attention, monitoring a watchlist, or feeding a model? The answer decides whether Light or Medium fits.
Connect it to your AI model
Use the MCP server with Claude or another MCP client and ask for social volume and sentiment changes, with the time window stated.
Confirm with other data
Check price structure, volume and holder concentration before acting. Our on-chain analytics guide shows how.
Record and review
Log each sentiment-driven idea and its outcome. After 30 to 50 cases you will know whether the signal helps you.
Final verdict
LunarCrush earns a 4.1. It has the broadest social dataset in crypto, the most recognisable metrics, and one of the cleanest integrations with AI models through MCP. For developers and agent builders it is the default choice for sentiment data.
For everyday traders the case is weaker. Without a trial, $72 a month is a lot to pay for numbers whose formulas you cannot see and whose predictive value nobody has independently proven. Use the free tier, decide whether attention data actually changes your decisions, and only then pay for the API. For a broader view of the category, start at our AI crypto analytics hub.
Frequently asked questions
What is LunarCrush?
LunarCrush is a social intelligence platform for crypto and stocks. It collects 100M+ social posts a day from X, Reddit, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and news, links them to 4,000+ cryptocurrencies and 2,000+ stocks, and turns that into metrics such as social volume, sentiment, Galaxy Score and AltRank. It sells this mainly as an API with MCP access for AI models.
What is the LunarCrush Galaxy Score?
Galaxy Score is LunarCrush's composite health score for an asset. Public descriptions list four inputs: price trend, social sentiment, social coverage and interactions, and how closely social activity correlates with price and volume. LunarCrush does not publish the weights, so treat it as a useful summary of attention and momentum, not a transparent indicator you can audit.
What does AltRank mean?
AltRank is a relative ranking of an asset's combined social and market activity against the rest of the tracked universe at that moment. Rank 1 means the strongest relative performance right now. LunarCrush itself suggests watching how fast the rank moves rather than the raw number, since a coin jumping from the hundreds into the top 50 signals accelerating attention.
How much does LunarCrush cost?
As of October 2026 paid plans are Light at $90/month ($72/month billed annually), Medium at $300/month ($240 annually) and Heavy at $900/month ($720 annually), plus custom Enterprise. A free account shows market data and 1-hour and 24-hour sentiment on the Discover page. There is no free trial on paid plans.
Is LunarCrush sentiment accurate?
It accurately measures what it measures: how much people talk about a coin and in what tone. Whether that predicts price is a different question, and nobody has published independent evidence that it does reliably. Social data is also easy to manipulate with bots and paid promotion. Use it to spot attention shifts, then confirm with price, volume and on-chain data.
Can I use LunarCrush with Claude or ChatGPT?
Yes. Every paid tier lists LunarCrush + LLM access through the API, an MCP server and a CLI, and Medium adds advanced MCP integrations. The MCP server launched in 2025 for Claude and Claude Code. That lets your AI model pull live social metrics into its answers. Our AI model comparison covers which assistants support MCP well.
Keep reading
Sources and fact-check dates
We link to primary sources wherever possible. Dates show when the page was published or when we last checked it.
- LunarCrush pricing · checked 2026-10-21
- LunarCrush about page (data coverage, founders) · checked 2026-10-21
- LunarCrush support: What is AltRank? · checked 2026-10-21
- LunarCrush blog: using AltRank to spot altcoin momentum · checked 2026-10-21
- LunarCrush FAQ: data sources and processing · checked 2026-10-21
- TradingView help: Galaxy Score (inputs) · checked 2026-10-21
- Trustpilot: LunarCrush reviews · checked 2026-10-21
