specification: API Commons Rate Limits
specificationVersion: '0.1'
schema: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/interface-research/main/schema/api-commons.yml#/$defs/RateLimits
provider: Accredible
providerId: accredible
created: '2026-07-05'
modified: '2026-07-05'
reconciled: false
tags:
- Digital Credentials
- Certificates
- Badges
- Rate Limiting
- Quotas
description: >-
  Accredible does not publish fixed numeric rate limits for its REST API in the
  public API reference. The practical governor on issuance volume is the plan's
  annual unique-recipient allowance rather than a per-minute request cap.
  Clients should treat the API as rate-limited in principle - implement
  exponential backoff, honor any Retry-After header, and prefer the bulk-create
  endpoint over many single-credential calls for large batches. The API
  authenticates each request with an API key in the Authorization header
  (`Token token=YOUR_API_KEY`); an invalid key returns 401.
notes: >-
  No numeric per-account or per-endpoint request limits were found in the
  Accredible API documentation as of the review date. A production and a sandbox
  environment are provided (api.accredible.com and sandbox.api.accredible.com);
  use the sandbox for load-sensitive testing. Verify any current limits with
  Accredible support during reconciliation.
sources:
- https://docs.api.accredible.com/
- https://help.accredible.com/s/article/api-faq
- https://help.accredible.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003470989-What-are-the-API-endpoints-
responseCodes:
  throttled: 429
  unauthorized: 401
limits:
- name: API Requests
  scope: account
  metric: requests
  limit: not published
  notes: No fixed numeric request-rate limit is documented for the Accredible API.
- name: Recipient Allowance
  scope: account
  metric: recipients
  limit: per plan (per year)
  notes: >-
    Issuance is governed by the plan's annual unique-recipient allowance rather
    than a request-rate cap. Unlimited credentials per unique recipient.
- name: Bulk Create Batch
  scope: request
  metric: credentials
  limit: batch via /credentials/bulk_create
  notes: Prefer bulk_create over many single POST /credentials calls for large issuances.
policies:
- name: Backoff Strategy
  description: >-
    Clients should implement exponential backoff with jitter and honor any
    Retry-After header on 429 responses.
- name: Bulk Preferred
  description: >-
    Use the bulk_create endpoint for large batches to reduce request volume and
    avoid throttling.
- name: Sandbox Testing
  description: >-
    Run high-volume or load-sensitive tests against the sandbox environment
    (sandbox.api.accredible.com) rather than production.
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com