Rate Limits & Pricing

Rate limits keep the API reliable for everyone. Your limit is per API key and resets on a rolling hourly window.

Tiers

Rate limit headers

Every response includes three headers so you always know where you stand:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
X-RateLimit-Limit: 500
X-RateLimit-Remaining: 487
X-RateLimit-Reset: 1704070800

When you hit the limit

A 429 response means you've exhausted your quota for the current window:

{
  "error": "Rate limit exceeded",
  "status": 429
}

The X-RateLimit-Reset header tells you exactly when to retry. The recommended pattern is to wait until the reset time rather than using fixed backoff:

async function fetchWithRetry(url, options, maxRetries = 3) {
  for (let attempt = 0; attempt <= maxRetries; attempt++) {
    const response = await fetch(url, options)

    if (response.status !== 429) return response

    const reset = response.headers.get('X-RateLimit-Reset')
    const waitMs = reset
      ? (Number(reset) * 1000) - Date.now()
      : Math.pow(2, attempt) * 1000

    await new Promise((resolve) => setTimeout(resolve, Math.max(waitMs, 1000)))
  }

  throw new Error('Max retries exceeded')
}

import time, requests

def fetch_with_retry(url, headers, params=None, max_retries=3):
    for attempt in range(max_retries + 1):
        response = requests.get(url, headers=headers, params=params)

        if response.status_code != 429:
            return response

        reset = response.headers.get('X-RateLimit-Reset')
        wait = max(int(reset) - int(time.time()), 1) if reset else 2 ** attempt
        time.sleep(wait)

    raise Exception('Max retries exceeded')

Staying within your limit

A few habits go a long way:

• Cache aggressively. Categories change rarely — cache them for hours. Random quotes for quote-of-the-day features only need one request per day.
• Use the right page size. Fetch what you need. If you're displaying 5 quotes, don't request 100.
• Watch X-RateLimit-Remaining. If you're regularly hitting zero, that's your signal to upgrade.
• Batch with filters. Use categories, author_id, or playlist_id to get the right quotes in one request rather than filtering on your end.

Bundle discount

FAQ

What counts as one request? Every API call, regardless of which endpoint. Errors count too, except 429 responses.

Can I get more than 2,000 requests/hour? For enterprise needs, contact support@quotegallery.nl.

What happens when I cancel? Access reverts to the Free tier immediately. Your API key stays valid — only the rate limit changes.

Do all endpoints share the same pool? Yes, there are no per-endpoint limits. All endpoints draw from the same hourly quota.