Reference · Glossary
Rate limit
Last updated
A cap on **how many API requests or tokens** you can use per minute — providers enforce it to keep services stable.
When to use
Planning production traffic, retries, and queueing — you'll hit 429 errors when you exceed limits.
When not to
Local experiments with tiny volume — until you scale or share one API key across many users.
Example
HTTP 429 + `Retry-After` header → back off, batch requests, or request a higher tier from the provider.