valorebooks.com APIvalorebooks.com ↗
Search ValoreBooks inventory, retrieve book metadata and marketplace offers, and get real-time buyback quotes via 3 REST endpoints.
curl -X GET 'https://api.parse.bot/scraper/6183a689-a458-48d3-8c7b-3adb938ef2ff/search_books?query=calculus' \ -H 'X-API-Key: $PARSE_API_KEY'
Search for books by title, author, or ISBN. When an ISBN is provided and matches a single book, the response contains full book details (title, offers, metadata) instead of a results list.
| Param | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| queryrequired | string | Search query (title, author, or ISBN) |
{
"type": "object",
"fields": {
"total": "integer count of results returned",
"results": "array of book objects with title, isbn, and url"
},
"sample": {
"data": {
"total": 25,
"results": [
{
"url": "https://www.valore.com/products/calculus-i-essentials-volume-1-essentials-study-guides/9780878915774",
"isbn": "9780878915774",
"title": "Calculus I Essentials Volume 1 Essentials Study Guides"
}
]
},
"status": "success"
}
}About the valorebooks.com API
The ValoreBooks API gives developers access to 3 endpoints covering book search, detailed product data, and buyback pricing from ValoreBooks.com. search_books accepts a title, author, or ISBN and returns a ranked results list — or, when a single ISBN matches, full book details directly. get_book_details returns structured offer data including price, condition, and seller fields, while get_buyback_quote returns eligibility status and the cash offer for a given ISBN.
Book Search
The search_books endpoint accepts a single query parameter — a title string, author name, or ISBN. When the query resolves to a unique ISBN match, the response skips the results list and returns full book details including offers and metadata in one call. For broader queries, the response includes a total count and a results array of objects with title, isbn, and url fields.
Book Details and Marketplace Offers
The get_book_details endpoint takes an isbn (ISBN-10 or ISBN-13) and returns the full product page data. The offers array contains individual listing objects, each with type (e.g. buy or rent), price, condition, and seller. The response also includes a metadata object with both ISBN-13 and ISBN-10 keys, a canonical url, and a json_ld array of structured data objects extracted from the page.
Buyback Quotes
The get_buyback_quote endpoint returns whether ValoreBooks will purchase a specific book and at what price. When eligible is true, the response includes buyback_price (e.g. $3.13*), shipping (e.g. FREE), title, and optionally an edition_restriction note. When eligible is false, a message field explains why the book does not qualify. Both states return the queried isbn for easy correlation in batch workflows.
- Compare buy and rent prices for a textbook ISBN across ValoreBooks listings using
get_book_details - Check whether a used textbook qualifies for buyback and what cash offer it would receive via
get_buyback_quote - Batch-process a list of ISBNs to identify books with
eligible=truebuyback status for resale arbitrage - Populate a textbook price comparison tool with offer condition and seller data from the
offersarray - Resolve author or title searches to canonical ISBNs and product URLs using
search_books - Surface edition restriction warnings from
get_buyback_quotebefore accepting book donations or purchases - Build a campus buyback assistant that maps a student's ISBN list to real-time ValoreBooks buyback prices
| Tier | Price | Credits/month | Rate limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/mo | 100 | 5 req/min |
| Hobby | $30/mo | 1,000 | 20 req/min |
| Developer | $100/mo | 5,000 | 250 req/min |
One credit = one API call regardless of which marketplace API you call. Exceeding the rate limit returns a 429 response. Authenticate with the X-API-Key header.
Does ValoreBooks have an official public developer API?+
What does `get_buyback_quote` return when a book is not eligible for buyback?+
eligible is false, buyback_price, shipping, title, and edition_restriction are all null, and a message string is present explaining why the book does not qualify. The isbn field is always returned so you can match the response back to your input.Does `get_book_details` return seller ratings or review counts?+
offers array includes type, price, condition, and seller fields but does not expose seller ratings, review counts, or fulfillment metrics. You can fork this API on Parse and revise it to add an endpoint targeting seller detail pages if those fields are needed.Can I retrieve a book's full offer list directly from a `search_books` call?+
search_books returns full details including offers. For multi-result queries, the response contains only title, isbn, and url per result. You would then pass each isbn to get_book_details to retrieve the offers array.Does the API cover rental return deadlines or rental period details?+
offers array includes type (which can indicate a rental), price, condition, and seller, but rental term length and return deadline data are not exposed. You can fork this API on Parse and revise it to add an endpoint that pulls rental term details from the relevant product page.