Free name gender checkers compared: what each free tier actually allows

You can check the gender associated with a name for free on several services, but the free tiers are shaped very differently. Some let you type a few names into a web form without an account; others give you an API key with a daily or monthly allowance. For a handful of names, any of them works. For a list, the shape of the allowance matters more than its size.

We checked the free tiers of four services on September 17, 2026. Free plans change often, so treat the table as a starting point and confirm on each vendor's pricing page before you rely on it.

Service	Without an account	Free account	Allowance shape	Card needed
NameGender	Web checker, 5 lookups a day per IP address	500 credits on signup, then 100 credits a day, API and spreadsheet jobs included	Daily, refills every day	No
Genderize.io	API calls without a key; a keyless call we made returned a limit of 25	2,500 names a month	Monthly	No
Gender-API.com	"Test drive" box on the home page	100 requests a month	Monthly	No
Namsor	Not tested	2,500 credits a month, 1 credit per gender lookup	Monthly	No

We are NameGender, so read our row as a claim to verify, not a reason to skip the others.

Daily or monthly: which free tier fits your job

The numbers in the table are not directly comparable, because they refill on different schedules.

One list, checked once. A monthly allowance is usually better here. With 2,500 names a month you can run a 1,000-row list in one sitting. A daily allowance of 100 would take ten days for the same list. On NameGender, the signup credits cover a first run of up to 500 names.

A steady trickle. If your app checks a few names each time someone signs up, a daily allowance suits it better. 100 a day adds up to about 3,000 in a 30-day month, but only if you use it every day. Unused daily credits do not pile up for later.

Evaluating before you buy. Neither tier is big enough to process a real customer file. What they are good for is a sample test: 200 to 500 names from your own data where you already know the answer. Every tier in the table covers that.

Test a free name gender checker in two minutes

A checker that only says "male" or "female" hides the part you need. Before trusting any of them, type these four inputs:

Taylor. In counted birth records the name is close to evenly split. A good checker shows a probability near 50%, not a confident answer.
Jean, once with no country and once with France. It is mostly female in US records and male in French ones. If the answer never changes, the country setting is doing nothing.
Micheal, a common misspelling. Check whether the tool tells you it matched a different spelling, or just gives a result without saying so.
Qzzxvv, a string that is not a name. The right answer is unknown. A tool that returns a gender here will also guess on real names it has no data for.

Those four inputs show more about a checker than any accuracy figure on its home page. How to compare name-to-gender APIs has the full version of this test for larger samples.

What a useful result shows

The result should give you enough to decide whether to believe it:

Probability: the share of recorded people with this name who have the reported gender. 51% and 99% are very different answers.
Sample size: how many records that share is based on. 100% from 3 people is weaker than 85% from 90,000.
Source: whether the answer came from an exact match, a spelling correction, or a guess.
Unknown as a real outcome: no evidence should mean no answer.

Our guide to probability, confidence and sample_size explains how to combine these fields into a threshold.

When the free web checker stops being the right tool

A web form is built for checking one name by hand. Three signs you have outgrown it:

You are pasting names one at a time from a spreadsheet. Upload the file instead. The spreadsheet walkthrough shows how, and a free account can process a list within its daily credits.
The lookup is part of your code. Use the API with your own key so limits, errors and retries are predictable. See what a name gender API does and how to run one in production.
The names are customer data. A public web form is not the place for a customer list. Use an account where you can see how files are stored and deleted, and read the privacy terms first.

Limits of any name gender checker

A free checker and a paid API use the same kind of evidence, so they share the same limits. A name tells you how often that name was recorded as male or female. It does not tell you how a particular person identifies. Use the result for aggregate analysis or optional personalisation with a neutral fallback, never for decisions about employment, credit, health, insurance or eligibility.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a completely free name gender checker? Yes. NameGender's web checker needs no account for a few lookups a day, and Gender-API.com has a test box on its home page. For more than a few names, a free account on any of the services above gives you an API key and a quota.

Which free tier gives the most lookups? It depends on timing. Genderize.io and Namsor allow 2,500 a month. NameGender allows 100 a day plus 500 at signup, which works out to more over a month if you use it every day, but less for a single large run.

Do I need a credit card for a free gender API key? None of the four services we checked asked for a card for their free tier.

Does an unknown result use up free credits? On NameGender, yes: each value you send costs one credit, whether or not a gender comes back. Remove duplicates and obvious non-names, such as info@ addresses, before sending a list.