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: Shotstack
providerId: shotstack
created: '2026-06-20'
modified: '2026-06-20'
reconciled: false
tags:
- Video
- Video Editing
- Media
- Rendering
- Generative AI
- Rate Limiting
- Quotas
- Throttling
description: >-
  Shotstack constrains usage through API request rate limits and render
  concurrency rather than token quotas. Renders are queued asynchronously and
  processed against a per-account concurrency allowance that scales with plan
  tier (Subscription and High Volume plans offer thousands of concurrent
  renders). Individual renders are capped at a 3-hour maximum length. Credit
  balance (1 credit = 1 rendered minute or 10 images) acts as the primary usage
  ceiling. Specific per-endpoint RPS values are not reconciled in this artifact.
notes: >-
  Verify per-account request limits and concurrency on reconciliation; render
  concurrency and priority increase with the Subscription and High Volume tiers.
sources:
- https://shotstack.io/docs/
- https://shotstack.io/pricing/
responseCodes:
  throttled: 429
limits:
- name: API Requests
  scope: account
  metric: requests
  limit: see provider documentation
  notes: Per-account request rate across Edit, Ingest, Serve, and Create APIs.
- name: Render Concurrency
  scope: account
  metric: concurrent_renders
  limit: thousands of concurrent renders (tier-dependent)
  notes: Concurrent renders scale with the plan tier; queued renders process as capacity frees.
- name: Maximum Render Length
  scope: render
  metric: minutes
  limit: 180
  notes: A single render is capped at 3 hours of output duration.
- name: Credit Balance
  scope: account
  metric: credits
  limit: plan-dependent
  notes: 1 credit = 1 rendered minute or 10 images; depletion blocks new renders.
policies:
- name: Tiered Limits
  description: Concurrency, priority, and resolution caps raise from Sandbox to PAYG to Subscription to High Volume / Enterprise.
- name: Asynchronous Queueing
  description: Renders are queued and processed asynchronously; poll the render status endpoint or use a webhook callback rather than blocking.
- name: Backoff Strategy
  description: Clients should implement exponential backoff with jitter on 429 responses and honor Retry-After.
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com