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: Cumulocity
providerId: cumulocity
created: '2026-05-25'
modified: '2026-05-25'
reconciled: true
tags:
  - IoT
  - Rate Limiting
  - Throughput
  - MQTT
description: Reconciled message-throughput, payload, and concurrency limits for the Cumulocity platform across REST, MQTT (SmartREST), Notification 2.0, and microservice tiers. Per-tenant message quotas are negotiated by plan.
sources:
  - https://cumulocity.com/pricing/
  - https://cumulocity.com/docs/device-integration/mqtt/
  - https://cumulocity.com/docs/concepts/tenant-types/
  - https://cumulocity.com/docs/reference/general-aspects/
headers:
  limit: x-ratelimit-limit
  remaining: x-ratelimit-remaining
  reset: x-ratelimit-reset
  retryAfter: retry-after
responseCodes:
  throttled: 429
  quotaExceeded: 429
  payloadTooLarge: 413
algorithm: leaky-bucket
quotas:
  - tier: Starter
    monthlyMessages: 2500000
    dataRetentionDays: 30
    uptimePercent: 95
  - tier: Business
    monthlyMessages: 250000000
    dataRetentionDays: configurable
    uptimePercent: 99
  - tier: Enterprise
    monthlyMessages: unlimited
    dataRetentionDays: configurable
    uptimePercent: 99.9
mqttLimits:
  - constraint: Max payload size
    value: 16184
    unit: bytes
    note: 16 KiB including header and body for all Core MQTT connections.
  - constraint: Supported protocols
    value: MQTT 3.1.1 and MQTT 5.0
  - constraint: TLS port
    value: 8883
  - constraint: Plain port
    value: 1883
  - constraint: Validated platform throughput
    value: 1000000
    unit: messages/second
notification2Limits:
  - constraint: JWT token max TTL
    value: 1440
    unit: minutes
    note: 24 hours maximum for Notification 2.0 subscription tokens.
  - constraint: Buffered messages per subscriber
    value: tenant-specific
    note: Persistent buffer survives subscriber outages; sized by plan.
restLimits:
  - constraint: Max collection page size
    value: 2000
    unit: items
    note: pageSize query parameter max.
  - constraint: Default page size
    value: 5
    unit: items
  - constraint: Concurrent requests per user
    value: tenant-specific
    note: Subject to fair-use throttling.
microserviceLimits:
  - constraint: Memory tier (XS)
    cpu: 0.25
    memory: 256
    unit: MiB
  - constraint: Memory tier (S)
    cpu: 0.5
    memory: 512
    unit: MiB
  - constraint: Memory tier (M)
    cpu: 1
    memory: 1024
    unit: MiB
  - constraint: Memory tier (L)
    cpu: 2
    memory: 2048
    unit: MiB
  - constraint: Memory tier (XL)
    cpu: 4
    memory: 4096
    unit: MiB
notes:
  - Plan quotas are negotiated for Business and Enterprise tiers; Starter is the only fixed-quota tier published.
  - Storage and retention default per plan but Enterprise tenants can override via Retention Rules API.
  - MQTT auto-throttles parse-error-heavy connections via the s/e error channel.