API Rate Limiting

By default, the test environment has 50% of the rate limit of the live environment.

To maintain optimal performance, an API rate limit limits the number of requests a client can make within a specific time frame. The Highnote platform has different rate limit types:

• Request
• Complexity

Rate limiting is based on which type you hit first. Each type has a specific rate limit for each Auth/API type:

For more information on calculating request complexity, see Request Complexity.

When an API request is rate limited, Highnote API returns a 429 TOO MANY REQUESTS status code.

If you exceed the API rate limit, the cost field is not returned in your API response. Instead, the Highnote API uses a retryAfter field to show how long to wait before retrying.

The following example represents a response of a rate-limited API request:

Refer to the following best practices to avoid hitting rate limits:

• Avoid polling: Avoid polling the API for asynchronous updates by registering a webhook target to receive notification events. See Notifications.

• Use pagination: When querying for listed data, use pagination to limit the number of requested items.

• Implement exponential backoff: Implement retries with exponential backoff when an API request receives a 429 TOO MANY REQUESTS response. For help, see:

  • Implementing Exponential Backoff
  • Apollo Client Retry Link
  • Exponential Backoff npm package