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: Google Ads
providerId: google-ads
created: '2026-05-04'
modified: '2026-08-13'
generated: '2026-08-13'
method: searched
source: >-
  https://developers.google.com/google-ads/api/docs/best-practices/quotas — replaces the
  2026-05-04 API Evangelist scaffold, whose per-minute/per-month tiers and X-RateLimit-*
  headers were placeholder values that Google does not publish.
tags:
  - Advertising
  - Campaign Management
  - Digital Advertising
  - Google
  - Marketing
  - PPC
  - Rate Limiting
  - Quotas
  - Throttling
description: >-
  Published Google Ads API quotas. The unit that matters is the OPERATION, not the
  request: a single mutate request may carry up to 10,000 operations and each one counts.
  Quota is scoped to the developer token's access level, not to a paid plan.
limit_count: 8
headers:
  limit: null
  remaining: null
  reset: null
  retryAfter: null
  policy: null
  note: >-
    Google publishes NO rate-limit response headers for this API and none were observed.
    The runtime throttling signal is in the error body: a RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED error whose
    QuotaErrorDetails carries rate_scope (ACCOUNT or DEVELOPER), rate_name (a human label
    such as "Requests per account") and retry_delay (a google.protobuf.Duration a client
    should wait before retrying). An agent must parse the payload, not the headers.
responseCodes:
  throttled: 429
  quotaExceeded: 429
  note: >-
    429 RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED is returned for both daily-operation exhaustion and per-second
    rate limiting, and also when a gRPC response would exceed the 64 MB message ceiling.
limits:
  - name: Daily operations — Explorer access, production accounts
    scope: developer-token
    metric: operations_per_day
    limit: 2880
    timeFrame: day
    error: RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED
    applies:
      - Google Ads API
  - name: Daily operations — Explorer access, test accounts
    scope: developer-token
    metric: operations_per_day
    limit: 15000
    timeFrame: day
    error: RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED
    applies:
      - Google Ads API
  - name: Daily operations — Basic access, test and production accounts
    scope: developer-token
    metric: operations_per_day
    limit: 15000
    timeFrame: day
    error: RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED
    applies:
      - Google Ads API
  - name: Mutate operations per request
    scope: per-request
    metric: operations_per_request
    limit: 10000
    error: TOO_MANY_MUTATE_OPERATIONS
    applies:
      - Google Ads API
  - name: Action operations per request
    scope: per-request
    metric: operations_per_request
    limit: 100
    error: TOO_MANY_ACTION_OPERATIONS
    applies:
      - Google Ads API
  - name: Conversions per upload request
    scope: per-request
    metric: conversions_per_request
    limit: 2000
    error: TOO_MANY_CONVERSIONS_IN_REQUEST
    applies:
      - Google Ads API
  - name: Planning service throughput
    scope: per-endpoint
    metric: queries_per_second
    limit: 1
    timeFrame: second
    error: RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED
    applies:
      - Google Ads API
    note: >-
      Keyword planning methods are additionally limited to 1 request per second per CID.
  - name: gRPC response message size
    scope: per-request
    metric: bytes_per_response
    limit: 67108864
    unit: 64 MB
    error: RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED
    applies:
      - Google Ads API
    note: Exceeding the ceiling surfaces as a 429 Resource Exhausted gRPC error.
counting_rules:
  - >-
    A search or searchStream request counts as ONE operation regardless of how many rows
    it returns.
  - >-
    A paginated follow-up request carrying a valid page token is NOT counted again.
  - >-
    Each individual operation inside a mutate request counts separately against the daily
    quota, so one 10,000-operation request consumes a whole Explorer-access day three
    times over.
policies:
  - name: Backoff strategy
    description: >-
      On RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED, wait for QuotaErrorDetails.retry_delay before retrying, then
      apply exponential backoff with jitter. There is no Retry-After header to honour.
  - name: Quota scope
    description: >-
      QuotaErrorDetails.rate_scope distinguishes ACCOUNT (per customer account) from
      DEVELOPER (per project or developer token). Backing off the wrong scope will not
      clear the throttle.
  - name: Access level, not payment
    description: >-
      Quota is raised by moving the developer token from Test to Explorer to Basic to
      Standard access through the API Center — an approval process, not a purchase. See
      plans/google-ads-plans-pricing.yml.
docs: https://developers.google.com/google-ads/api/docs/best-practices/quotas
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: kin@apievangelist.com
    url: https://apievangelist.com