Rate Limiting

Beta Feature

Rate limiting policies are in beta and may change. Monitor the changelog for updates.

The Acme API enforces rate limits to ensure fair usage and system stability.

Rate Limit Tiers

Plan	Requests/Minute	Requests/Day
Free	60	1,000
Pro	600	50,000
Enterprise	6,000	Unlimited

Rate Limit Headers

Every response includes rate limit information:

X-RateLimit-Limit: 600
X-RateLimit-Remaining: 595
X-RateLimit-Reset: 1705312800

Header	Description
X-RateLimit-Limit	Maximum requests per minute
X-RateLimit-Remaining	Remaining requests in current window
X-RateLimit-Reset	Unix timestamp when the limit resets

Rate Limit Exceeded

When you exceed the limit, you’ll receive a 429 response:

{
  "error": {
    "code": "rate_limit",
    "message": "Rate limit exceeded",
    "retry_after": 45
  }
}

The Retry-After header indicates seconds to wait:

HTTP/1.1 429 Too Many Requests
Retry-After: 45

Best Practices

1. Monitor rate limit headers to track remaining requests proactively.
2. Implement exponential backoff for retries.
3. Queue requests to spread them over time.
4. Cache responses to reduce unnecessary API calls.
5. Use webhooks to subscribe to events instead of polling.

Handling Rate Limits

async function fetchWithRetry(url, options, maxRetries = 3) {
  for (let i = 0; i < maxRetries; i++) {
    const response = await fetch(url, options);

    if (response.status === 429) {
      const retryAfter = response.headers.get('Retry-After') || 60;
      await sleep(retryAfter * 1000);
      continue;
    }

    return response;
  }
  throw new Error('Max retries exceeded');
}