Cloverly API Alternatives for Developers (2026)

If you searched for “cloverly carbon offset api” recently, you probably noticed something has changed. Cloverly, which built its reputation as an API-first carbon offset platform for ecommerce developers, has increasingly repositioned itself around “Catalyst”: a B2B software platform for carbon credit project developers and institutional buyers. The ecommerce API that many developers integrated to fire a carbon offset per order is no longer the company’s primary focus.

For developers who built integrations around Cloverly’s REST API to retire carbon credits per transaction, this shift raises a practical question: what is the best alternative in 2026?

This post compares your options, with a close look at GoodAPI’s REST API as a purpose-built alternative for ecommerce developers who want simple, per-order environmental impact without the complexity of carbon credit retirement workflows.

What Cloverly’s API Was Built For

Cloverly launched as an API for ecommerce brands to make transactions carbon neutral. The core workflow looked like this: you send a POST request with shipping details (weight, origin ZIP, destination ZIP), Cloverly calculates the carbon footprint of that shipment, purchases the equivalent carbon offset on a verified registry (Verra or Gold Standard), and returns a certificate ID confirming the retirement.

It was a reasonable approach for a specific use case: neutralizing the precise shipping emissions of a specific order. Developers who needed exact carbon accounting, where the offset is mathematically tied to the weight and distance of a shipment, found this model useful.

The Cloverly API is still operational. But the company’s public roadmap, blog content, and product launches in 2024 and 2025 have shifted toward enterprise carbon project management, partnership with institutional buyers, and tools for project developers to manage credit inventory and sales pipelines. The lightweight “plant something per order” developer integration is no longer the headline use case.

If you are a developer building a DTC brand integration, a Shopify app, or any product where the primary goal is letting customers know their purchase had a real-world environmental impact, you need to evaluate whether Cloverly is still the right tool, or whether a more focused alternative serves you better.

The Carbon Credit Retirement Workflow: Why Developers Are Reconsidering It

Before jumping to alternatives, it is worth understanding why many ecommerce developers have already moved away from the carbon credit retirement model, even before Cloverly’s pivot.

Tree Planting APIs: A Different Approach

Tree planting APIs solve a different version of the same problem. Instead of calculating emissions and retiring credits, they let you trigger a real, verified tree planting event per order, per product, per signup, or on any custom event you define.

The developer workflow is simpler:

No shipping weight calculations. No carbon math. No registry lookups. One API call, one real tree.

For customers, the output is far more legible: “We planted a tree for your order.” It is a message that needs no footnote, no certificate number, and no explanation. It works in order confirmation emails, on product pages, in loyalty dashboards, and across social media.

GoodAPI REST API: The Developer Breakdown

GoodAPI is the most straightforward REST API alternative for developers who previously used Cloverly for ecommerce integrations. Here is what you need to know about the technical implementation.

Authentication

GoodAPI uses Bearer token authentication. When you create an account, you get two API keys: a test key for development (trees planted with the test key are never billed or counted against live impact totals) and a production key for your live environment.

curl -X POST https://app.thegoodapi.com/plant/trees \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $GOODAPI_TEST_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"quantity": 1}'

The test/production key separation means you can build and test your integration against the real API without triggering real charges, a familiar pattern for any developer who has worked with Stripe or Twilio.

Core Endpoints

The main planting endpoint accepts a quantity, an optional project identifier, and optional metadata like an order ID or customer email for your own tracking:

POST /plant/trees
{
  "quantity": 1,
  "project": "kenya-mangroves",
  "metadata": {
    "order_id": "shopify_1234567",
    "customer_email": "buyer@example.com"
  }
}

The response includes a unique planting ID, an impact URL you can send to the customer so they can see their tree’s GPS location, and the project details:

{
  "id": "tree_abc123",
  "quantity": 1,
  "project": {
    "name": "Kenya Mangroves",
    "country": "Kenya",
    "partner": "Veritree"
  },
  "impact_url": "https://impact.thegoodapi.com/tree_abc123",
  "status": "planted"
}

The impact URL is worth highlighting. Rather than handing customers a registry certificate number, you hand them a URL they can actually visit. It shows the project, the GPS coordinates of the planting area, and the monitoring data from Veritree, GoodAPI’s verified reforestation partner. Trees are geolocated, tracked, and supported through their critical first years of growth.

SDKs

GoodAPI ships official SDKs for Node.js/TypeScript and Python:

import { GoodAPI } from "@goodapi/node";

const ga = new GoodAPI(process.env.GOODAPI_KEY!);

const result = await ga.trees.create({
  quantity: 1,
  metadata: { orderId: order.id }
});

// Send result.impact_url to the customer

from goodapi import GoodAPI

ga = GoodAPI(api_key=os.environ["GOODAPI_KEY"])
result = ga.trees.create(quantity=1)
print(result.impact_url)

Webhooks

GoodAPI supports outbound webhooks for planting confirmations, which is useful if you want to update your own database or trigger downstream notifications (a Klaviyo event, a Slack alert, a fulfillment log entry) when a planting is confirmed. The webhook payload uses the same schema as the API response.

Pricing

Compare that to Cloverly’s carbon credit pricing, which varies based on current market rates for verified offsets. Variable pricing makes sense for enterprise carbon buyers managing portfolios; it is less ideal for a DTC brand trying to predict their monthly sustainability spend.

Comparing the Developer Experience

Here is how the two APIs compare on dimensions that matter for developers building ecommerce integrations:

The biggest practical difference for developers is the required inputs. Cloverly’s model requires accurate shipping data to produce a meaningful carbon calculation. GoodAPI requires only a quantity. If you are building a checkout integration, loyalty app, email trigger, or any non-shipping context, GoodAPI’s model is dramatically simpler to implement.

When Carbon Offset APIs Still Make Sense

Carbon credit retirement APIs remain the right choice for specific enterprise use cases: Scope 1/2/3 emissions reporting, compliance with regulatory carbon neutrality standards, logistics companies neutralizing fleet emissions, or any organization where the offset needs to be mathematically tied to a measured emission.

If your use case is “make each order carbon neutral based on its exact shipping footprint” for regulatory or B2B reporting purposes, Cloverly or similar platforms (Patch, South Pole, Xpansiv) are the right fit.

But if your use case is “give customers a clear, emotionally resonant environmental action tied to their purchase”, which describes the vast majority of DTC and Shopify brand integrations, tree planting APIs deliver a better outcome with less integration complexity.

Migration in Practice

If you are moving an existing Cloverly integration to GoodAPI, the migration is straightforward. Replace your Cloverly API call (which required shipping inputs and carbon calculations) with a single GoodAPI POST. Update your customer-facing messaging from “carbon neutral order” to “a tree was planted for your order.” Point the customer to the impact URL instead of a certificate number.

For Shopify merchants without a custom integration, the fastest path is to install the GoodAPI app directly from the Shopify App Store. Setup takes under two minutes, no code required.

For teams already using a custom API integration, the developer documentation at thegoodapi.com/docs covers authentication, project selection, webhook setup, and SDK usage in detail.

The Developer Bottom Line

Cloverly built a real product, and the carbon offset model has a legitimate role in enterprise sustainability workflows. But for developers building ecommerce integrations where the goal is customer-facing environmental impact, the complexity of carbon credit retirement (variable pricing, shipping data requirements, abstract customer output) creates friction that does not pay off.

GoodAPI’s REST API offers a simpler path: one endpoint, one fixed price per tree, and a GPS-tracked impact URL your customers will actually open. The test/production key setup, official SDKs for Node.js and Python, and webhook support give you the developer experience you would expect from any modern API. The downstream customer messaging, “a tree was planted for your order,” converts in a way that a carbon registry certificate number simply does not.

If you are building sustainability features in 2026 and need a clean REST API that just works, start with GoodAPI.