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: ipify
providerId: ipify
created: '2026-05-29'
modified: '2026-05-29'
reconciled: true
tags:
  - Rate Limiting
  - IP Address
  - Geolocation
description: >-
  ipify operates two surfaces with very different rate-limit postures. The free
  public IP API (api.ipify.org, api6.ipify.org, api64.ipify.org) is explicitly
  documented as having no rate limit — the homepage says "you can use it
  without limit, even if you're doing millions of requests per minute." The
  paid IP Geolocation API (geo.ipify.org) enforces a hard 100-requests-per-
  second ceiling per API key plus the monthly credit quota of the active plan.
  All limits are per API key (paid) or per IP and global infrastructure (free).
sources:
  - https://www.ipify.org/
  - https://geo.ipify.org/docs
responseCodes:
  throttled: 429
  quotaExceeded: 403
  serverError: 500
limits:
  - name: Public IP API requests
    scope: global
    metric: requests_per_second
    limit: 'unlimited (documented as no limit, including millions of requests per minute)'
    notes: >-
      api.ipify.org, api6.ipify.org, and api64.ipify.org do not enforce a
      published per-IP or per-account rate limit. Use polite client behavior
      (caching, exponential back-off on transient errors).
  - name: Geolocation API request rate
    scope: key
    metric: requests_per_second
    limit: 100
    timeFrame: second
    notes: >-
      Hard 100 req/s ceiling per API key. Exceeding it returns HTTP 429.
      Distribute load across multiple keys for higher throughput.
  - name: Geolocation API monthly credits
    scope: key
    metric: requests_per_month
    limit: 'per-plan monthly credit allotment (see plans/ipify-plans-pricing.yml)'
    notes: >-
      Country = 1 credit, Country+City = 2 credits, Country+City+VPN = 3
      credits per successful request. Free Trial grants 1,000 one-time
      credits at signup; paid plans grant a monthly bundle.
  - name: Geolocation API account balance check
    scope: key
    metric: requests_per_second
    limit: 100
    timeFrame: second
    notes: >-
      `/service/account-balance` shares the same 100 req/s ceiling as the
      Geolocation endpoints.
policies:
  - name: Public IP — no logging, no auth, no quota
    description: >-
      The public IP API enforces no authentication and no per-account quota.
      ipify states "no visitor information is ever logged." Client-side
      caching is still encouraged to reduce upstream load.
  - name: Geolocation — 100 req/s per key
    description: >-
      The Geolocation API caps each API key at 100 requests per second. The
      ceiling is hard — there is no published mechanism to raise it short of
      acquiring additional keys.
  - name: Geolocation — credit-metered quota
    description: >-
      Monthly credit quota is the primary commercial throttle. Country = 1,
      Country+City = 2, Country+City+VPN = 3. Out-of-credit responses return
      HTTP 403; rate-ceiling responses return HTTP 429.
  - name: Retry behavior
    description: >-
      On 429, back off using exponential delay (e.g. 100 ms, 200 ms, 400 ms)
      with jitter. On 5xx, retry idempotent GETs up to 3 times. On 403 with
      "insufficient credits", do not retry — top up the plan.
  - name: Recommended caching
    description: >-
      Geolocation results for the same IP are stable on the order of hours
      to days. Cache lookups in your application layer and key the cache by
      IP + endpoint (country / country-city / country-city-vpn).