FXMacroData vs JBlanked News API: Forex Calendar Data for EAs and Python Bots

This comparison is for retail Expert Advisor (EA) developers, Python bot builders, and small systematic FX teams who want economic calendar data inside their code rather than on a web page. JBlanked News API and FXMacroData both sell to that buyer: someone running MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, or a Python loop who needs to know when Non-Farm Payrolls or a central-bank decision lands, what the number was, and whether to stand aside or trade.

The core finding: the two products cost almost the same per month, but they are built from different raw material. JBlanked wraps existing third-party calendars (MQL5, Forex Factory, and FXStreet) and adds OpenAI-based "NewsGPT" sentiment and machine-learning impact labels, bundled with courses and a Discord community. FXMacroData collects releases from official statistics agencies and central banks, stamps every release row with a second-level announcement_datetime, measures its own publication speed in public, and covers 22 currencies with a licence path for commercial use. If your bot needs auditable release timing and broad FX coverage, FXMacroData is the stronger data layer; if you want a low-cost lifetime bundle with MQL-native libraries and learning material, JBlanked is a credible option.

Decision snapshot

Choose JBlanked News API when

You want a one-time lifetime price, ready-made MQL4/MQL5 libraries, AI sentiment and impact labels on top of familiar retail calendars, plus courses and a Discord community.

Choose FXMacroData when

Your EA or bot needs official-source values, second-level release timestamps, 22 currencies, deep history, COT and yields context, MCP for AI agents, and a clear licence for commercial use.

Fast verdict

Similar monthly price. JBlanked wins on bundle value and MQL convenience. FXMacroData wins on provenance, timing evidence, coverage, and licensing.

Takeaway: the decision is less about price and more about whether your strategy needs to trust where each number came from and exactly when it became public.

Pricing and plans

JBlanked does not sell the News API on its own. Unrestricted API access comes with a membership: VIP at $47 per month or $470 per year, or Lifetime at $497 as a one-time payment. Both memberships also include forex and coding courses (Python and MQL), a premium Discord with alerts, a library of trading tools, NewsGPT, and access to JBlanked's separate TradeAPI. A free API key is available from a JBlanked profile, limited to one request every five minutes.

FXMacroData publishes four plans. Always Free needs no key, covers USD data only, allows 100 requests per day, and delivers USD announcements on a 15-minute delay. Individual is $50 per month or $500 per year with a 14-day trial, 1,000,000 requests per month, and bursts of 300 per minute. Business is $250 per month or $2,500 per year for teams of up to 10 people with company checkout and priority support. Enterprise is by custom agreement. A self-serve Commercial Redistribution add-on costs $10 per month per block of up to 100 measured users (or 1,000 public-feed followers).

FXMacroData Individual

$50/month

Or $500/year. 14-day trial, 22 currencies, 1,000,000 requests/month, official-source release data, MCP access.

JBlanked VIP

$47/month*

Or $470/year*. Unrestricted News API, courses, Discord, NewsGPT, trading tools.

JBlanked Lifetime

$497 once*

Same inclusions as VIP with no recurring charge. Purchases are stated as non-refundable.

Takeaway: monthly cost is within $3 of each other, and JBlanked's Lifetime option is cheaper than FXMacroData over any horizon longer than a year. The difference you pay for with FXMacroData is data provenance, timing, coverage, and licensing, not a lower sticker price.

Free tiers serve different purposes. JBlanked's free key returns the same calendar endpoints but only once every five minutes, which is enough to test a library but too slow for a live news filter. FXMacroData's free tier is faster per request (100 per day) but restricted to USD and delayed 15 minutes, so it is useful for building and backtesting against US releases before subscribing.

Monthly list price, USD

FXMacroData in mint; JBlanked plans in cyan. Hover a bar for the exact price.

Takeaway: JBlanked VIP and FXMacroData Individual cost about the same per month; the difference is official-source data with release timestamps versus re-served third-party calendars.

Side-by-side comparison

* Competitor pricing retrieved from their public membership page in October 2026.

Source provenance: wrapped calendars versus official releases

JBlanked is open about where its data comes from. The API exposes separate endpoint families for mql5, forex-factory, and fxstreet, so a developer chooses which calendar to read. That is convenient for EA builders who already trust one of those calendars, and it means JBlanked's numbers should match what those sites show. It also means the API inherits each calendar's schedule, naming, and correction habits, and three sources can disagree with each other on the same event.

FXMacroData goes one step further upstream. Each series is collected from the statistics agency or central bank that publishes it, for example the Bureau of Labor Statistics for Non-Farm Payrolls and US CPI, or the Federal Reserve for the Fed policy rate. Every series carries source metadata, so a bot can log which official surface a value came from. For anyone backtesting news filters or debugging a missed trade, that audit trail matters more than which calendar UI looks familiar. The parallel comparisons with Forex Factory and the FXStreet economic calendar API cover those upstream calendars directly.

How a number reaches your EA

JBlanked path

1. Official agency publishes the release.
2. MQL5, Forex Factory, or FXStreet updates its calendar.
3. JBlanked reads the calendar and adds outcome, strength, quality, and AI labels.
4. Your EA polls JBlanked.

FXMacroData path

1. Official agency publishes the release.
2. FXMacroData collects it from the official surface and stamps announcement_datetime.
3. Your EA or bot reads the row over REST or receives it over SSE.

Takeaway: JBlanked adds an interpretation layer on top of an intermediary calendar. FXMacroData removes the intermediary, which shortens the path and makes each value traceable to its publisher.

Timestamps and release timing

JBlanked returns event dates as strings such as 2024.02.08 15:30:00, the MetaTrader-style format. The Python library exposes an hour offset setting (the documented example uses 7 for US Eastern time) to shift those strings into local time. That works well inside MetaTrader, where broker server time is the reference, but it puts timezone handling on the developer and the strings do not carry a zone.

FXMacroData returns announcement_datetime as epoch seconds on every release row, so there is no timezone ambiguity when you join a release to tick or bar data for EUR/USD or USD/JPY. On speed, JBlanked does not publish a latency figure, and its timing cannot be faster than the upstream calendar it reads. FXMacroData's releases are typically available within seconds of official publication, against a target of one second, and the release-speed record shows the share of releases available within one second by source and lists every release that took longer.

NFP morning, as an EA sees it

T-60 min

Both APIs list the scheduled event. The EA tightens filters on GBP/USD and other USD pairs.

T+0

Official publication. FXMacroData stamps the row with the second it became public.

T+seconds

FXMacroData row is typically readable; SSE pushes the event to subscribers.

After upstream update

JBlanked reflects the actual once MQL5, Forex Factory, or FXStreet has updated; timing not published.

Takeaway: for "stand aside around news" filters, either API can work. For strategies that react to the actual number, measured, published timing is the attribute to test before buying.

Developer access for EAs and Python bots

This is where JBlanked earns real credit. Its MQL4 and MQL5 libraries are written for MetaTrader developers, the jb-news Python package installs with pip, and there is even a Swift library. Endpoints are simple (calendar/today, calendar/week, calendar/range per source), and each event includes name, currency, event ID, impact, category, date, actual, forecast, previous, plus JBlanked's outcome, strength, and quality labels. The libraries are published under the MIT licence.

FXMacroData is a REST JSON API with an OpenAPI specification and header authentication, Python and JavaScript SDKs, SSE streaming for release events, and GraphQL. MetaTrader users call it with WebRequest from an EA; the guides for MetaTrader 4 Expert Advisors and MetaTrader 5 with Python walk through both setups. A single request looks like this:

curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" "https://api.fxmacrodata.com/v1/announcements/usd/non_farm_payrolls"

Example response (abridged, illustrative values):

{
  "currency": "USD",
  "indicator": "non_farm_payrolls",
  "data": [
    {
      "date": "2026-09-01",
      "val": 142.0,
      "prior": 118.0,
      "pct_change": 20.3,
      "announcement_datetime": 1790944200
    }
  ]
}

FXMacroData row

• announcement_datetime: epoch seconds, no timezone conversion.
• val and prior: official values for surprise logic.
• Calendar and forecasts available from /v1/calendar/{ccy} and predictions.

JBlanked event

• date: MetaTrader-style string, adjusted with an offset.
• actual, forecast, previous from the chosen calendar.
• outcome, strength, quality: ready-made labels for EA logic.

Takeaway: JBlanked hands an EA a pre-labelled verdict; FXMacroData hands it a precise, sourced fact and leaves the interpretation to your own rules.

Licensing and commercial use

The JBlanked libraries are MIT-licensed, but the data service is governed by the site terms. Those terms allow use for personal, non-commercial, or internal business purposes, and say content may not be redistributed or exploited commercially without express written permission. They also state that all purchases are non-refundable, which is worth knowing before committing to the Lifetime option.

FXMacroData separates the two cases explicitly. Individual and Business plans cover your own trading and internal tools. If you sell a signal service, publish an indicator to other traders, or run an app where other people see the data, the self-serve Commercial Redistribution add-on licenses it at $10 per month per block of up to 100 measured users, without a sales call.

Where JBlanked is genuinely stronger

• Lifetime pricing. $497 once is cheaper than any FXMacroData plan after the first year.
• MQL-native libraries. Drop-in MQL4 and MQL5 code lowers the effort for EA builders who do not want to write WebRequest and JSON parsing themselves.
• Sentiment and prediction features. NewsGPT and the outcome, strength, and quality labels give beginners a ready-made signal layer.
• Choice of familiar calendars. Traders who already watch Forex Factory or the MQL5 calendar get the same events in code.
• Community and education. Courses, weekly trainings, and a Discord come with the membership, which FXMacroData does not offer.

Where FXMacroData is stronger

FXMacroData is the stronger choice when the data itself is the product you depend on, rather than a bundle around it.

FXMacroData pros

• Official statistics agencies and central banks as sources, with metadata per series.
• Second-level timestamps and a public release-speed record.
• 22 currencies, including AUD/USD drivers, Nordic, Asian, and Latin American markets.
• COT, bond yields, commodities, and FX sessions in the same key.
• Self-serve commercial licence and an MCP server for AI agents.

FXMacroData tradeoffs

• No lifetime plan; recurring monthly or annual billing.
• MetaTrader access is via WebRequest guides rather than a packaged MQL library.
• No courses or community bundle.

JBlanked pros

• $497 lifetime option and $47 monthly VIP.
• MQL4, MQL5, Python, and Swift libraries.
• AI sentiment and ML impact labels.

JBlanked tradeoffs

• Data comes from third-party calendars, not directly from publishers.
• No published latency figure; zone-less date strings.
• 8 currencies listed; commercial use needs written permission.

Takeaway: JBlanked is a well-packaged retail toolkit. FXMacroData is the more rigorous data source for bots that trade the number and need to prove where it came from.

Decision matrix

Recommendation

Choose JBlanked News API if you are early in your EA journey, you value a one-time lifetime price, and you want MQL code, AI sentiment labels, and a community in the same purchase. It is a fair product from a small independent developer, and for a basic news filter on eight major currencies it does the job.

Choose FXMacroData if your bot reacts to the actual number, if you backtest against release times, if you trade beyond the eight majors, or if you plan to sell anything built on the data. Start with the free USD tier to wire up your EA or Python loop, check the API reference for endpoints, review the release-speed record, and compare plans on the pricing page. The release calendar shows the upcoming schedule your EA will see.

Bottom line: at nearly the same monthly price, JBlanked sells a retail trading bundle built on third-party calendars, while FXMacroData sells official-source release data with second-level timestamps, publicly measured speed, 22-currency coverage, and a clear commercial licence. For automated FX strategies that depend on the data, FXMacroData is the stronger foundation.

Sources checked

Competitor claims are based on JBlanked's public pages, retrieved in October 2026. Where a figure is not published, this article says so rather than estimating.

JBlanked membership

VIP and Lifetime prices and inclusions.

View source

JBlanked API docs

Auth header, calendar endpoints, currencies, date format, rate limits, AI features.

View source

JB-News on GitHub

Sources, free-tier limit, MQL/Python/Swift libraries, MIT licence.

View source

JBlanked terms

Personal and internal-use scope, commercial permission, refund policy.

View source

FXMacroData pricing and docs

Plans, limits, endpoints, and release-speed record.

View API reference

Takeaway: every competitor figure above links to a public JBlanked page, so readers can re-check pricing and limits before buying.

Related reading

• FXMacroData vs Forex Factory
• FXMacroData vs FXStreet Economic Calendar API
• Best economic indicator feeds for algo trading
• FXMacroData vs Finnhub