In mid-2025, Valve quietly released something that changed the game for developers wanting to understand their sales data: the Steam Sales Data API.

Let’s break down what this means and how IndieForge is leveraging it to give you better insights.

What the API Provides

The new API gives developers programmatic access to:

  • Revenue data - broken down by date, region, and currency
  • Units sold - gross and net (accounting for refunds)
  • Key activations - track how your Steam keys are being used
  • Bundle sales - see performance across bundles
  • In-game transactions - if you have DLC or microtransactions

This is data that was previously only available through the Steamworks partner portal, and required manual exports.

Why This Matters

Before this API, tracking your game’s performance meant:

1. Log into Steamworks
2. Navigate to financial reports
3. Export CSV files
4. Import into spreadsheets
5. Manually create charts
6. Repeat daily/weekly

Now, tools like IndieForge can pull this data automatically and keep it up-to-date.

Regional Insights

One of the most powerful aspects is the regional breakdown. You can now see:

  • Which countries are driving the most revenue
  • How currency conversion affects your earnings
  • Regional pricing effectiveness

This is invaluable for planning localization efforts or regional marketing campaigns.

What We’re Building

At IndieForge, we’re building on top of this API to give you:

  1. Automatic syncing - your data stays fresh without manual exports
  2. Smart visualizations - see trends that matter
  3. Anomaly detection - get alerted when something unusual happens
  4. Recommendations - actionable insights based on your data

Getting Started

To use the API (or tools built on it like IndieForge), you’ll need:

  1. A Steamworks partner account
  2. A Partner Web API Key
  3. At least one published game

We’ll have more tutorials on setting this up as we get closer to launch.

Want to be first to try IndieForge when we launch? Join the waitlist.