The Soundstripe API uses a number of safeguards against bursts of incoming traffic to maximize stability. If you send too many requests in a quick succession, you might see error responses with status code 429.

We implement rate limiting to ensure fair usage and maintain optimal performance for all users. Please be aware of these limits when integrating our API into your applications.

Current Limits

The basic limiter restricts the number of requests per second as follows:

25 requests

This means each client is allowed to make up to 25 API requests within any given one-second window.

Understanding Rate Limits

Rate limits are applied on a per-client basis, typically identified by the API key used in the request. If you exceed this limit you may receive a 429 Too Many Requests HTTP status code in response.

Best Practices

To ensure smooth operation within these limits:

Implement proper error handling in your code to catch and appropriately respond to 429 errors.
Consider implementing request queuing or throttling in your application to manage request rates.
Optimize your API usage by caching responses when appropriate.

Handling limiting gracefully

A basic technique for integrations to graceful handle limiting is to watch for 429 status codes and build in a retry mechanism. The retry mechanism should use an exponential backoff schedule to reduce request volume when needed. We can also recommend building some randomness into the schedule to help avoid negative effects like thundering herds.