Rate Limits

Rate limits control throughput: how many requests per second your account can make. They are separate from your monthly credits quota.

Limits by plan

Plan	Requests per second
Free	1
Pro 200K	5
Pro 500K	15
Pro 1.5M	25
Pro 3.5M	50
Enterprise	Custom

Requests made without an API key are limited to 5 per hour.

The limit applies to your account as a whole. Every API key draws on the same limit, including keys belonging to different environments.

Response headers

Header	Returned on	Description
X-RateLimit-Limit	All responses except a throughput 429	Requests allowed in the current window
X-RateLimit-Remaining	All responses except a throughput 429	Requests still available in the current window
Retry-After	Throughput 429 responses	Seconds to wait before the limit resets

Checking your limit

Your account's limit is returned by the status endpoint as account.plan.rate_limit:

curl -X GET "https://api.usercheck.com/status" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

Exceeding the limit

Requests beyond your limit return 429 Too Many Requests:

{
  "status": 429,
  "error": "Too many requests"
}

The response carries a Retry-After header giving the number of seconds until the limit resets.

Ignoring 429 responses and continuing to send at the same rate blocks your IP address for 5 minutes. Waiting for the interval in Retry-After avoids this.

A 429 with the same body, but no Retry-After header, means your monthly credits are used up rather than your throughput limit.