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: Screaming Frog
providerId: screaming-frog
generated: '2026-08-13'
method: searched
source: >-
  https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/user-guide/general/ ,
  https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/guides/mcp-server/ ,
  https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/pricing/
created: '2026-05-04'
modified: '2026-08-13'
tags:
  - SEO
  - Website Crawler
  - Rate Limiting
description: >-
  Screaming Frog publishes no API rate limits, because it publishes no API. The SEO
  Spider and Log File Analyser are desktop applications; their automation surfaces (the
  CLI and the v24 MCP server) run locally against the user's own machine and are not
  metered, throttled or served over the network. This file REPLACES a 2026-05-04
  bulk-sweep scaffold that invented X-RateLimit-* headers, 429 semantics and
  free/professional/enterprise requests-per-minute ceilings none of which Screaming Frog
  has ever published.

limit_count: 0
headers: {}
responseCodes: {}
limits: []

what_is_actually_limited:
  - name: Free version crawl cap
    kind: licence-limit
    scope: per-crawl
    value: 500 URLs
    source: https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/pricing/
    note: A product licence limit, not a request rate limit. See plans/screaming-frog-plans-pricing.yml.
  - name: Free Log File Analyser cap
    kind: licence-limit
    scope: per-project
    value: 1,000 log lines, 1 project
    source: https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/log-file-analyser/pricing/
  - name: Crawl speed
    kind: client-side-configuration
    scope: per-crawl
    value: user-configurable max threads and URLs-per-second
    source: https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/user-guide/configuration/
    note: >-
      This throttles the CUSTOMER's crawler against a THIRD-PARTY website. It is a
      politeness control the operator sets, not a limit Screaming Frog enforces on a
      consumer of a Screaming Frog service.
  - name: LLM context window
    kind: client-side-constraint
    scope: per-mcp-session
    value: undocumented
    source: https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/guides/mcp-server/
    note: >-
      The provider warns that large crawl exports easily exceed an LLM context window and
      recommends writing reports to files or processing them with a Node script instead.
      This is guidance, not an enforced quota.

third_party_quotas:
  note: >-
    Where the SEO Spider consumes external APIs during a crawl, the applicable rate
    limits belong to those providers and are billed and enforced against the customer's
    own credentials — Google Analytics, Google Search Console (including the URL
    Inspection API), PageSpeed Insights, Ahrefs, Majestic, Moz, OpenAI, Gemini and Ollama.
    Screaming Frog neither sets nor signals those limits.

maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: kin@apievangelist.com