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: Breeze ChMS
providerId: breeze-chms
created: '2026-07-03'
modified: '2026-07-03'
reconciled: false
tags:
- Church Management
- ChMS
- Rate Limiting
- Quotas
description: >-
  The Breeze ChMS API enforces a request-rate limit of roughly 20 requests per
  minute per account API key. Breeze recommends waiting about 3.5 seconds
  between calls to stay under the limit; exceeding it results in a temporary
  block. The limit applies across the whole API surface (people, tags, events,
  attendance, giving, funds, pledges, forms, volunteers, and account) since all
  endpoints share the same Api-Key credential and church subdomain. There are no
  separate published per-endpoint quotas, and there is no data volume or
  seat-based API cap - the constraint is request frequency.
notes: >-
  Design integrations to be polite: batch reads, cache results, and space calls
  ~3.5 seconds apart. The 20-requests-per-minute figure is from Breeze's
  API / custom development documentation; re-verify during reconciliation.
sources:
- https://support.breezechms.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001324153-API-Advanced-Custom-Development
- https://app.breezechms.com/api
responseCodes:
  throttled: 429
limits:
- name: API Requests
  scope: account
  metric: requests
  limit: ~20 per minute
  notes: Shared across all endpoints for a given church subdomain and Api-Key.
- name: Recommended Spacing
  scope: account
  metric: seconds
  limit: ~3.5 seconds between calls
  notes: Breeze's recommended delay to stay under the per-minute limit.
- name: Text Messaging Allowance
  scope: account
  metric: messages
  limit: 250 per month included
  notes: Product-level messaging allowance, not an API request limit; overage billed per message.
policies:
- name: Temporary Block
  description: Exceeding the request-rate limit results in a temporary block until the window resets.
- name: Backoff Strategy
  description: Implement spacing (~3.5s) and exponential backoff with jitter; honor 429 responses and retry after the window resets.
- name: Caching
  description: Cache reference data such as funds, tags, calendars, and profile fields to minimize repeated calls against the shared rate limit.
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com