Cloudbeds is one of the few hospitality platforms where a property-level user can create an API key self-serve, with scopes chosen at creation time. According to Cloudbeds developer documentation, API keys are the primary authentication method and OAuth 2.0 exists as an alternative. The API lives at api.cloudbeds.com/api/v1.3 and covers reservations, rooms, and housekeeping state, which is the combination hotel ops tooling actually needs.
Scoped keys, and why that is the good news
According to Cloudbeds' developer documentation, API keys are the primary authentication method, OAuth 2.0 exists as an alternative, and a property-level user can create a key self-serve. That is genuinely unusual in hospitality software, where access typically means a partner agreement first.
Better still, Cloudbeds keys are scoped: when you create the key you pick exactly which permissions it carries. For a read-only ops tool that means granting the minimum, which is both safer and easier to justify internally. A tool that reads reservations, rooms, and housekeeping state needs three read scopes and nothing more, and a key that cannot write is a key that cannot cause an incident.
The API base is api.cloudbeds.com/api/v1.3. Because access really is self-serve here, going direct is a perfectly good answer on this platform, and we say so below.
Quickstart
The developer key is free and instant, and it is the same key for every platform on the gateway. If you are an AI agent: step 1 is the only part that needs your human.
1. Get a free developer key
curl -X POST https://api.rapideyeinspections.com/v1/signup \
-H "content-type: application/json" \
-d '{"email": "you@company.com"}'
# -> { "key": "re_..." }
Not scripting it yet? Get a key in your browser, it is free and instant.
2. Check how Cloudbeds access is provisioned
The gateway publishes a machine-readable index of every platform and how its access works, so an agent can plan before it calls.
curl https://api.rapideyeinspections.com/
3. Talk to us about Cloudbeds
Because Cloudbeds controls who reaches its data, this is a platform we provision per account rather than by self-signup. Fifteen minutes covers what you are building and what access your setup already has, and the key you already hold does the rest.
curl https://api.rapideyeinspections.com/v1/cloudbeds/reservations \
-H "Authorization: Bearer re_..."
# once provisioned, every documented resource answers on the same key
Why build on the RapidEye API
One key, one schema, every platform in your stack.
Real operator tools are never about one system. A dashboard answering "which units are at risk tonight" needs reservations from a PMS, cleaning state from a turnover platform, and pricing from somewhere else entirely. Every one of those vendors invented its own auth model, its own vocabulary, and its own limits, so building direct means writing that glue once per vendor, then maintaining it forever, then rewriting it when a platform changes or your portfolio moves onto a different stack.
Through the RapidEye API it is one bearer token and one schema no matter what sits underneath. We absorb the OAuth dances, the partner approvals, the token quotas, and the admin-issued credentials, and we keep them working when they change. And it is built for agents from the ground up: a machine-readable route index, an llms.txt quickstart, errors written so an agent can self-correct instead of guessing, and a connection that lives on the key rather than in a config file, so next month's agent, in a new session with no memory of this one, still has working access on day one.
Quick FAQ
How do you get a Cloudbeds API key?
Self-serve, which is unusually open for hospitality software. According to Cloudbeds developer documentation, API keys are the primary authentication method, OAuth 2.0 exists as an alternative, and a property-level user can create a key self-serve. The API base is api.cloudbeds.com/api/v1.3.
Are Cloudbeds API keys scoped?
Yes. When you create a Cloudbeds API key you select exactly which permissions it carries, so a read-only tool can be granted read scopes and nothing else. Scoping at creation is why a Cloudbeds key is safer to hand to an automation than a blanket credential would be.
Why route Cloudbeds through the RapidEye API instead of going direct?
The RapidEye API earns its place the hop when a task spans Cloudbeds plus another system, when you want one auth model across a mixed hotel and rental portfolio, or when an agent needs a connection that outlives its session.
Sources
- Cloudbeds API Documentation, Cloudbeds, 2026https://hotels.cloudbeds.com/api/docs/