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: SoundStat
providerId: soundstat
created: '2026-07-03'
modified: '2026-07-03'
reconciled: false
tags:
- Music
- Audio Analysis
- Audio Features
- Rate Limiting
- Quotas
description: >-
  SoundStat does not publish fixed numeric per-minute or per-second rate limits
  for its REST API. The terms of service state that SoundStat reserves the right
  to restrict access when usage limits are exceeded, but specific thresholds are
  not documented. In practice the primary governor on consumption is economic
  rather than a request-rate cap: unique track analysis is billed against a
  prepaid balance, so throughput is bounded by available funds and by the per-track
  volume bands. Repeated reads of already-analyzed tracks and the free
  recommendation endpoints are served without incurring analysis charges.
notes: >-
  No documented numeric request-rate limit exists as of the review date. Treat the
  usage terms as the binding constraint and design clients to back off on 429 (and
  other 4xx/5xx) responses. Confirm any account-level throttles with SoundStat
  during reconciliation.
sources:
- https://soundstat.info/terms.html
- https://soundstat.info/api/v1/docs
- https://soundstat.info/
responseCodes:
  throttled: 429
limits:
- name: REST API Requests
  scope: account
  metric: requests
  limit: not published
  notes: No fixed numeric per-minute or per-second request-rate limit is documented.
- name: Unique Track Analysis
  scope: account
  metric: tracks
  limit: prepaid balance / volume bands
  notes: Analysis of a not-yet-seen track is billed per unique track; throughput is bounded by prepaid funds, not a request cap.
- name: Free Recommendation Endpoints
  scope: account
  metric: requests
  limit: subject to fair-use restriction
  notes: Similar, feature-target, and mixed recommendation endpoints are free; SoundStat may restrict access if usage limits are exceeded.
policies:
- name: Usage-Based Restriction
  description: SoundStat reserves the right to restrict access when usage limits are exceeded, per its terms of service.
- name: Analysis Caching
  description: Once a track is analyzed it is served from the corpus on subsequent requests without re-charging, reducing effective load and cost.
- name: Backoff Strategy
  description: Clients should implement exponential backoff with jitter and honor Retry-After on 429 responses.
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com