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: Cardano
providerId: cardano
created: '2026-06-13'
modified: '2026-06-13'
reconciled: true
tags:
  - Rate Limiting
  - Blockchain
  - Cardano
description: Blockfrost enforces per-IP rate limiting on all Cardano API requests. Each IP address is
  allowed 10 requests per second with a burst allowance of up to 500 requests that refills at 10
  requests per second. Daily request quotas are enforced per project based on the active subscription
  plan. Enterprise plans support custom rate limit configuration.
sources:
  - https://blockfrost.dev/overview/plans-and-billing
  - https://docs.blockfrost.io/
responseCodes:
  throttled: 429
limits:
  - name: Blockfrost Cardano API — sustained rate
    scope: IP
    metric: requests_per_second
    limit: 10
    timeFrame: second
    notes: Applies to all endpoint requests identified by client IP address.
  - name: Blockfrost Cardano API — burst allowance
    scope: IP
    metric: requests_burst
    limit: 500
    timeFrame: burst
    notes: Burst pool of 500 requests refills at 10 requests per second; useful for batch data ingestion.
  - name: Blockfrost Cardano API — Starter daily quota
    scope: project
    metric: requests_per_day
    limit: 50000
    timeFrame: day
    notes: Day is measured from midnight to midnight UTC.
  - name: Blockfrost Cardano API — Hobby daily quota
    scope: project
    metric: requests_per_day
    limit: 300000
    timeFrame: day
    notes: Day is measured from midnight to midnight UTC.
  - name: Blockfrost Cardano API — Developer daily quota
    scope: project
    metric: requests_per_day
    limit: 1000000
    timeFrame: day
    notes: Day is measured from midnight to midnight UTC.
  - name: Blockfrost Cardano API — Enterprise daily quota
    scope: project
    metric: requests_per_day
    limit: -1
    timeFrame: day
    notes: Custom limits negotiated with Blockfrost support; IP whitelisting available.
policies:
  - name: Token bucket / burst
    description: Requests are governed by a token-bucket algorithm; the bucket holds 500 tokens and
      refills at 10 tokens per second. Exceeding the bucket returns HTTP 429.
  - name: Daily quota reset
    description: Daily request counters reset at midnight UTC regardless of the consumer's local timezone.
  - name: Backoff on 429
    description: Clients receiving HTTP 429 should apply exponential backoff with jitter before retrying.
  - name: Enterprise custom limits
    description: Enterprise subscribers may negotiate custom per-IP or per-project rate limits and
      whitelist trusted IP ranges through Blockfrost support.
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: kin@apievangelist.com