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: Smartlead
providerId: smartlead-ai
generated: '2026-08-13'
method: searched
source: https://api.smartlead.ai/guides/rate-limits
created: '2026-05-22'
modified: '2026-08-13'
tags:
- Cold Email
- Outbound
- Sales
- Deliverability
- Rate Limiting
- Quotas
- Throttling
description: >-
  SmartLead's published rate limits, read from its Rate Limits guide. Limits are enforced per API
  key and are shared across every endpoint — campaign, lead and analytics calls all draw on the
  same budget. This file replaces an earlier scaffold whose numbers were placeholder defaults.
scope: per-api-key
applies_to_all_endpoints: true
headers:
  limit: X-RateLimit-Limit
  remaining: X-RateLimit-Remaining
  reset: X-RateLimit-Reset
  retryAfter: Retry-After
  note: >-
    X-RateLimit-Reset is a Unix timestamp for the end of the current window. Retry-After is
    returned only on a 429.
responseCodes:
  throttled: 429
  quotaExceeded: 429
error_body:
  example: |
    {
      "error": {
        "code": "RATE_LIMIT_EXCEEDED",
        "message": "Too many requests. Please retry after 30 seconds.",
        "retry_after": 30
      }
    }
  code: RATE_LIMIT_EXCEEDED
  retry_after_field: error.retry_after
limit_count: 3
limits:
- tier: standard
  name: Standard
  scope: api-key
  metric: requests_per_minute
  limit: 60
  timeFrame: minute
  applies: [https://server.smartlead.ai/api/v1]
- tier: standard
  name: Standard (hourly)
  scope: api-key
  metric: requests_per_hour
  limit: 1000
  timeFrame: hour
  burst: 10 requests/second
  applies: [https://server.smartlead.ai/api/v1]
- tier: pro
  name: Pro
  scope: api-key
  metric: requests_per_minute
  limit: 120
  timeFrame: minute
  applies: [https://server.smartlead.ai/api/v1]
- tier: pro
  name: Pro (hourly)
  scope: api-key
  metric: requests_per_hour
  limit: 3000
  timeFrame: hour
  burst: 20 requests/second
  applies: [https://server.smartlead.ai/api/v1]
- tier: enterprise
  name: Enterprise
  scope: api-key
  metric: requests_per_minute
  limit: null
  timeFrame: minute
  note: Custom — SmartLead publishes "Custom" for per-minute, per-hour and burst on this tier.
payload_limits:
- operation: addLeadsToCampaign
  limit: 400
  unit: leads per request
  source: https://api.smartlead.ai/guides/rate-limits
recoveryStrategies:
- name: Exponential backoff with jitter
  description: >-
    SmartLead's documented approach — honor Retry-After when present, otherwise back off 1s, 2s,
    4s, 8s, 16s with random jitter, to a documented default of 5 retries.
- name: Proactive client-side throttling
  description: >-
    SmartLead recommends setting a client-side ceiling at ~80% of the tier limit (50/min against
    the 60/min Standard limit) to absorb timing skew.
- name: Batch instead of per-record calls
  description: Use the bulk lead-import endpoint (max 400 per request) rather than one call per lead.
x-evidence:
- url: https://api.smartlead.ai/guides/rate-limits
  http_status: 200
  fetched: '2026-08-13'