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: Apollo.io
providerId: apollo-io
created: '2026-05-08'
modified: '2026-08-13'
generated: '2026-08-13'
method: searched
source: https://docs.apollo.io/reference/rate-limits
sources:
  - https://docs.apollo.io/reference/rate-limits
  - https://docs.apollo.io/docs/api-pricing
reconciled: true
tags:
  - Sales Intelligence
  - B2B Data
  - Rate Limiting
  - Throttling
description: >-
  Apollo enforces rate limits per TEAM (not per key or per user), per ENDPOINT, and in three
  windows at once — per minute, per hour and per day. Child workspaces share their parent's limits.
  An endpoint may be limited in some or all windows and every applicable window must be satisfied.
  Windows are fixed and open on the first request rather than aligned to the clock, so a count
  resets when its window elapses. Exhausting any window returns 429 with a retry-after header.
  Credit consumption is a separate, independent ceiling from the request-rate limits.
notes: >-
  Numbers below are the published maximums for current plans; legacy plans differ. The
  authoritative per-team values come from the View API Usage Stats endpoint
  (POST /usage_stats/api_usage_stats), which returns limits and remaining capacity per route.
responseCodes:
  throttled: 429
limit_count: 12
limits:
  - name: Requests per minute (default)
    scope: team-per-endpoint
    metric: requests
    window: minute
    by_plan: {free: 50, basic: 200, professional: 200, organization: 200}
  - name: Requests per hour (default)
    scope: team-per-endpoint
    metric: requests
    window: hour
    by_plan: {free: 200, basic: 400, professional: 400, organization: 600}
  - name: Requests per day (default)
    scope: team-per-endpoint
    metric: requests
    window: day
    by_plan: {free: 600, basic: 2000, professional: 2000, organization: 6000}
  - name: Enrichment endpoints — per minute
    scope: team-per-endpoint
    metric: requests
    window: minute
    by_plan: {free: 50, free_bulk: 20, basic: 1000, professional: 1000, organization: 1000}
    applies_to: [people-enrichment, bulk-people-enrichment, organization-enrichment,
                 bulk-organization-enrichment, organization-jobs-postings, 'get_people{id}', 'get_organizations{id}']
  - name: Enrichment endpoints — per hour
    scope: team-per-endpoint
    metric: requests
    window: hour
    by_plan: {free: 200, free_bulk: 100, basic: unlimited, professional: unlimited, organization: unlimited}
  - name: Enrichment endpoints — per day
    scope: team-per-endpoint
    metric: requests
    window: day
    by_plan: {free: 600, basic: unlimited, professional: unlimited, organization: unlimited}
  - name: Search endpoints — per minute
    scope: team-per-endpoint
    metric: requests
    window: minute
    by_plan: {free: 50, basic: 200, professional: 200, organization: 200}
    applies_to: [people-api-search, organization-search, news_articles_search]
    note: >-
      Searching your OWN saved records (search-for-contacts, search-for-accounts and similar) is not
      a database search and falls back to the default plan limits.
  - name: Search endpoints — per hour
    scope: team-per-endpoint
    metric: requests
    window: hour
    by_plan: {free: 200, basic: 6000, professional: 6000, organization: 6000}
  - name: Search endpoints — per day
    scope: team-per-endpoint
    metric: requests
    window: day
    by_plan: {free: 600, basic: 50000, professional: 50000, organization: 50000}
  - name: Query Analytics Report
    scope: team-per-endpoint
    metric: requests
    window: hour
    limit: 5
    applies_to: [sync-report]
  - name: Export Conversations (Free plans)
    scope: team-per-endpoint
    metric: requests
    window: minute
    limit: 1
    hourly_limit: 20
    applies_to: [export-conversations]
  - name: Apollo MCP
    scope: mcp-session
    metric: requests
    window: unpublished
    note: >-
      Apollo MCP uses rate limits separate from the REST API and returns none of the x-rate-limit-*
      headers. The numbers are not published.
headers:
  limit: [x-rate-limit-minute, x-rate-limit-hourly, x-rate-limit-24-hour]
  usage: [x-minute-usage, x-hourly-usage, x-24-hour-usage]
  remaining: [x-minute-requests-left, x-hourly-requests-left, x-24-hour-requests-left]
  backoff: [retry-after]
  behavior: >-
    Headers are added only after authentication and authorization succeed and the endpoint's limit is
    checked — 401 and 403 responses carry none. An unlimited window returns an empty x-rate-limit-*
    header and no usage headers for that window, so enrichment calls on paid plans come back with a
    per-minute limit and nothing hourly or daily. retry-after is returned with a 429 and gives the
    seconds until the exhausted window resets.
credits:
  independent_of_rate_limits: true
  note: >-
    Enrichment's high per-minute allowance is not a licence to send unlimited requests — the credit
    balance is the real ceiling on enriched data. See plans/apollo-io-plans-pricing.yml.
policies:
  - name: Read the headers, not the table
    description: >-
      Limits vary by endpoint and plan and legacy plans differ. Read x-*-requests-left on every
      response and call POST /usage_stats/api_usage_stats for the authoritative per-route values.
  - name: Honor retry-after
    description: On a 429, wait the number of seconds in retry-after; the window is fixed, so retrying earlier cannot succeed.
  - name: Batch instead of looping
    description: >-
      Bulk enrichment takes up to 10 records per request and counts as one call against a per-minute
      limit that is 20/min on Free — a 10x reduction in request count over single-record calls.
  - name: Budget pagination
    description: >-
      Credit-consuming search endpoints charge per page (organization search 1 credit per page of
      100; news search 1 credit per page of 25), so deep pagination multiplies spend.
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: kin@apievangelist.com