Rate Limits

API requests are rate-limited based on your partner tier. Rate limits are applied per partner account, not per API key.

Limits by tier

Tier	Requests per Minute
Tier 1 (default)	100
Tier 2	500
Tier 3	2,000

All new partner accounts start on Tier 1. To request a tier upgrade, contact your RynoPay account manager.

Response headers

Every API response includes rate limit information:

Header	Description
X-RateLimit-Limit	Your tier's request limit per minute
X-RateLimit-Remaining	Requests remaining in the current window

Exceeding your limit

When you exceed your rate limit, you will receive:

HTTP/1.1 429 Too Many Requests

How to handle rate limits

1. Check the headers -- Use X-RateLimit-Remaining to monitor your usage proactively.
2. Back off -- When you receive a 429, wait before retrying. The rate limit window resets every minute.
3. Implement exponential backoff -- For automated retries, use exponential backoff with jitter to avoid thundering herd problems.
4. Batch where possible -- If the API supports batch operations, prefer them over individual requests.

Example: Retry with backoff

async function callWithRetry(fn, maxRetries = 3) {
  for (let attempt = 0; attempt < maxRetries; attempt++) {
    const response = await fn();

    if (response.status !== 429) {
      return response;
    }

    // Exponential backoff: 1s, 2s, 4s
    const delay = Math.pow(2, attempt) * 1000;
    await new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, delay));
  }

  throw new Error('Rate limit exceeded after max retries');
}