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: tidb
providerId: tidb
created: '2026-05-04'
# Provenance stamped 2026-08-11: this artifact was written by the API Evangelist
# bulk sweep dated 2026-05-04, not harvested from the provider. See roadmap#35.
method: generated
modified: '2026-05-05'
reconciled: false
tags:
  - Database
  - Cloud
  - Rate Limiting
description: TiDB Cloud limits its workload by Request Units (RUs) and storage rather than per-second
  HTTP rate caps. The Starter tier allots 250M RUs/month and 25 GiB row + 25 GiB column storage per organization;
  the Essential preview autoscales up to 100K RUs and the Premium/Dedicated tiers scale further. TiDB
  Cloud's Management API and Data Service do publish HTTP throttling, but those numbers are not summarized
  on the public pricing page reviewed.
sources:
  - https://www.pingcap.com/pricing/
notes: Public pricing page covers RU/storage quotas; per-second HTTP rate limits for the TiDB Cloud
  Management API and Data Service live in product docs that were not fetched in this pass — leave reconciled
  false until docs.pingcap.com/tidbcloud rate-limit pages are confirmed.
responseCodes:
  throttled: 429
limits:
  - name: Starter Free Request Units
    scope: organization
    metric: request_units_per_month
    limit: 250000000
    timeFrame: month
    notes: Free monthly RU allowance per organization on the Starter tier.
  - name: Starter Free Row Storage
    scope: organization
    metric: gb
    limit: 25
    timeFrame: month
    notes: 25 GiB of row storage included free per organization on Starter.
  - name: Starter Free Column Storage
    scope: organization
    metric: gb
    limit: 25
    timeFrame: month
    notes: 25 GiB of column storage included free per organization on Starter.
  - name: Essential Autoscale Ceiling
    scope: cluster
    metric: request_units_per_second
    limit: 100000
    timeFrame: second
    notes: Essential preview autoscales up to 100K RUs per second.
policies:
  - name: Request Units (RUs)
    description: TiDB Cloud meters work in Request Units, not raw HTTP requests; an RU encapsulates the
      compute and IO of a query and is the primary unit for both throttling and billing.
  - name: Spend Limits
    description: Starter exposes spend limits and scale-to-zero so customers can bound monthly cost while
      remaining pay-as-you-go beyond the free allowance.
  - name: Autoscaling
    description: Essential and Premium scale RU capacity automatically; Premium has unlimited autoscaling
      while Essential caps at ~100K RUs.
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: kin@apievangelist.com