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: Beacon Roofing Supply
providerId: beacon-roofing-supply
created: '2026-05-04'
generated: '2026-09-04'
method: searched
modified: '2026-09-04'
source: >-
  https://www.qxo.com/integrations/api-license-terms (the published API license terms) and a
  full census of the eleven Beacon Rest Services OpenAPI documents at
  https://beaconproplus.com/swagger/ (424 operations), plus live unauthenticated probes of
  https://beaconproplus.com/v1|v2|v3/rest/com/becn/* on 2026-09-04
reconciled: true
tags:
  - Construction
  - Roofing
  - Distribution
  - E-Commerce
  - Rate Limiting
limit_count: 0
description: >-
  Beacon publishes NO numeric rate limit, no window, no burst allowance and no runtime signal. This
  is a searched zero, not an unchecked one: the contracts were censused and the license terms were
  read. The only constraint QXO states is a qualitative one in the API license terms, section 3.1(f),
  which prohibits use that "exceeds reasonable request volume, constitutes excessive or abusive
  usage" — with "reasonable" left undefined and no remedy short of termination ("QXO may terminate
  at any time and for any reason upon notice").
evidence:
  - fact: No 429 response is declared on any of the 424 published operations.
    source: openapi/*.yml census, 2026-09-04
  - fact: No RateLimit-*, X-RateLimit-* or Retry-After header appears anywhere in the eleven documents.
    source: openapi/*.yml grep, 2026-09-04
  - fact: >-
      A live unauthenticated GET of https://beaconproplus.com/v3/rest/com/becn/branchData returned
      401 with headers x-powered-by, access-control-allow-origin, etag, strict-transport-security,
      cache-control and pragma — and no rate-limit header of any kind.
    source: probe 2026-09-04
  - fact: The API license terms state no call cap, no throughput number and no SLA.
    source: https://www.qxo.com/integrations/api-license-terms
responseCodes:
  throttled: null
  note: >-
    Unknown. No throttling status is documented and none was observed. Do not assume 429 — the API
    already returns a non-standard 419 for token expiry, so its status vocabulary is not conventional.
limits: []
headers: []
policies:
  - name: Reasonable-volume clause (the only stated limit)
    description: >-
      API license terms 3.1(f) prohibits use that "exceeds reasonable request volume, constitutes
      excessive or abusive usage". No threshold is published, so a partner cannot self-assess
      compliance from the contract.
    source: https://www.qxo.com/integrations/api-license-terms
  - name: Bulk-extract endpoints exist and should be preferred over polling
    description: >-
      V3 publishes GET /downloadCatalogItemData, /skuData, /branchData and /productAvailabilityData
      as bulk downloads. Where an integration needs the full catalog, these are the intended path;
      iterating the paginated /itemlist to reconstruct the catalog is the shape most likely to read
      as "excessive usage" under 3.1(f).
  - name: Crawler directive on the API path prefixes
    description: >-
      https://www.qxo.com/robots.txt Disallows /v1/*, /v2/* and /v3/*. It governs the web host rather
      than the API, but it is the closest thing QXO publishes to a stated automated-access posture.
  - name: Backoff guidance (API Evangelist recommendation, not provider policy)
    description: >-
      Because no signal exists, an integrator has to infer throttling from 500s and latency. Use
      exponential backoff with jitter, and treat 419 as refresh-and-retry rather than as a limit.
notes: >-
  Ask Beacon/QXO for the per-partner limit during onboarding at https://go.qxo.com/qxoapi — it is
  the single most useful undocumented number for this API. Do not invent throughput values.
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: kin@apievangelist.com