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: Buy Me a Coffee
providerId: buymeacoffee
created: '2026-07-05'
modified: '2026-07-05'
reconciled: false
tags:
- Creator Economy
- Memberships
- Payments
- Rate Limiting
- Quotas
description: >-
  Buy Me a Coffee does not publish an official numeric rate limit for its
  developer API in the public-facing documentation. The API is read-only and
  personal (scoped to a single creator's own account), so request volumes are
  naturally low. The Microsoft Power Platform connector that wraps the same
  API enforces a client-side throttle of 100 calls per connection per 60
  seconds - a reasonable practical guideline, though it is the connector's
  limit rather than a value Buy Me a Coffee documents directly. Results are
  paginated (Laravel-style current_page / per_page / next_page_url), so large
  supporter, member, or Extras lists should be walked page by page rather than
  polled aggressively.
notes: >-
  No official per-account or per-endpoint numeric limit is documented by Buy
  Me a Coffee as of the review date; the 100-calls/60s figure is from the
  Microsoft connector and is modeled here as a practical guideline. Verify
  current limits in the Developer Dashboard during reconciliation.
sources:
- https://developers.buymeacoffee.com/
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/connectors/buymeacoffeeip/
responseCodes:
  throttled: 429
limits:
- name: Developer API Requests
  scope: token
  metric: requests
  limit: not officially published
  notes: No fixed numeric request-rate limit is documented by Buy Me a Coffee for the developer API.
- name: Connector Throttle (practical guideline)
  scope: connection
  metric: requests
  limit: 100 per 60 seconds
  notes: Enforced by the Microsoft Power Platform connector wrapping the same API; modeled here as a practical guideline, not an official Buy Me a Coffee value.
- name: Pagination Page Size
  scope: request
  metric: records
  limit: per_page (server-defined)
  notes: Collections return a fixed per_page count; walk next_page_url to page through supporters, members, and Extras.
policies:
- name: Read-Only Access
  description: The developer API is read-only (GET); tokens can be created with a read-only option in the Developer Dashboard.
- name: Backoff Strategy
  description: On a 429 response, implement exponential backoff with jitter before retrying.
- name: Paginate Not Poll
  description: Use next_page_url to page through large result sets instead of repeatedly polling the first page.
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com