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: Spider Cloud
providerId: spider-cloud
created: '2026-05-25'
modified: '2026-05-25'
tags:
  - Crawling
  - Scraping
  - Data Extraction
  - URLs
  - AI
  - Rate Limiting
  - Quotas
  - Throttling
description: Rate limit definitions for the Spider Cloud API. Every account is permitted up to 10,000 core
  API requests per minute by default. Spider's hosted MCP server inherits the same per-account API limit.
  Browser-automation sessions are constrained to five concurrent sessions and time out after five minutes
  of inactivity. Enterprise accounts can negotiate higher limits.
headers:
  limit: X-RateLimit-Limit
  remaining: X-RateLimit-Remaining
  reset: X-RateLimit-Reset
  retryAfter: Retry-After
  policy: RateLimit-Policy
responseCodes:
  throttled: 429
  quotaExceeded: 429
  serviceUnavailable: 503
limits:
  - tier: default
    name: Default Core API RPM
    scope: account
    metric: requests_per_minute
    limit: 10000
    timeFrame: minute
    applies:
      - Spider API
      - Spider Cloud MCP Server
  - tier: default
    name: Browser Session Concurrency
    scope: account
    metric: concurrent_sessions
    limit: 5
    timeFrame: instant
    applies:
      - Spider API
      - Spider Cloud MCP Server
  - tier: default
    name: Browser Session Idle Timeout
    scope: session
    metric: idle_minutes
    limit: 5
    timeFrame: minute
    applies:
      - Spider Cloud MCP Server
  - tier: enterprise
    name: Negotiated Enterprise Limit
    scope: contract
    metric: requests_per_minute
    limit: -1
    timeFrame: minute
    applies:
      - Spider API
      - Spider Cloud MCP Server
policies:
  - name: Backoff Strategy
    description: Clients should implement exponential backoff with jitter on 429 responses, honoring the
      Retry-After header when present.
  - name: Failed Requests Are Free
    description: Spider's billing model does not charge for failed responses — only successful responses
      that return data — which complements rate limit recovery.
  - name: Browser Session Lifecycle
    description: Browser-automation sessions are limited to five concurrent sessions per account and are
      automatically closed after five minutes of inactivity.
  - name: Enterprise Negotiation
    description: Accounts needing more than 10,000 RPM should contact sales for custom rate limit
      provisioning.
  - name: Robots.txt
    description: Crawling honors robots.txt by default; clients can opt out but should respect target-site
      policies and fair-use norms.
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: kin@apievangelist.com