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: WeatherAPI.com
providerId: weatherapi
created: '2026-05-28'
modified: '2026-05-28'
reconciled: false

tags:
  - Rate Limiting
  - Weather
  - Geolocation

description: >-
  WeatherAPI.com enforces a monthly call-volume quota (the plan entitlement: 100K → 10M+) as its
  primary control. Per-second request limits are not published as numeric values on the public
  pricing or docs pages — the provider says "very high concurrency, contact us if you need a
  specific number." The Business and Enterprise tiers add IP allow/block lists. Quota is scoped to
  the account (API key); exceeding it returns HTTP 403 with a JSON ErrorResponse explaining "API
  key has exceeded calls per month quota." Hard infrastructure throttling responds with HTTP 429.

sources:
  - https://www.weatherapi.com/docs/
  - https://www.weatherapi.com/pricing.aspx

responseCodes:
  quotaExceeded: 403
  throttled: 429
  invalidKey: 401
  badRequest: 400

limits:

  - name: Monthly call quota (Free)
    scope: account
    metric: requests_per_month
    limit: 100000
    timeFrame: month
    notes: Resets on the calendar month boundary. Excess returns HTTP 403.

  - name: Monthly call quota (Starter)
    scope: account
    metric: requests_per_month
    limit: 3000000
    timeFrame: month

  - name: Monthly call quota (Pro+)
    scope: account
    metric: requests_per_month
    limit: 5000000
    timeFrame: month

  - name: Monthly call quota (Business)
    scope: account
    metric: requests_per_month
    limit: 10000000
    timeFrame: month

  - name: Monthly call quota (Enterprise)
    scope: account
    metric: requests_per_month
    limit: -1
    notes: Custom quota negotiated per contract.

  - name: Burst / per-second throttle
    scope: account
    metric: requests_per_second
    limit: 'not publicly documented — contact support for guaranteed concurrency'
    notes: Hard throttling returns HTTP 429; the SLA targets 99–100% availability with 200ms average response time.

  - name: Bulk request size (Pro+ and above)
    scope: account
    metric: locations_per_request
    limit: 50
    notes: POST /current.json#bulk accepts up to 50 location entries per call.

policies:

  - name: Quota scope
    description: All quotas are scoped to a single API key (account). Multiple keys can be issued from the same account dashboard.

  - name: Quota reset
    description: Monthly quotas reset at 00:00 UTC on the first day of the calendar month.

  - name: Error semantics
    description: |
      - 400 — malformed request (missing q, invalid date format, invalid days range).
      - 401 — missing or unrecognised API key.
      - 403 — recognised key, but plan does not permit the requested endpoint, parameter, or quota is exhausted.
      - 429 — infrastructure throttling; retry with exponential backoff.

  - name: Retry guidance
    description: On 429 or transient 5xx, retry with exponential backoff (e.g. 1s, 2s, 4s, 8s) up to 5 attempts. The 200ms average response time means jitter of ±50ms is appropriate.

  - name: Geographic restriction
    description: Forecast and history endpoints are global; sports data is currently football (soccer), cricket, and golf. IP lookup respects EU privacy where required.

  - name: SLA
    description: |
      - Free 95.5%
      - Starter / Pro+ 99%
      - Business 99.9%
      - Enterprise 100% with contractual SLA