Rate Limits

ChowAPI uses dual rate limiting: per-minute burst limits and monthly quotas.

Per-minute burst limits

Tier	Requests/minute
Credit Pack (Dev/Builder)	30
Credit Pack (Scale)	100
Pay-as-you-go	100
Enterprise	2,000

Monthly quotas

Tier	Monthly calls
Credit Pack (Dev)	5,000 calls ($5)
Credit Pack (Builder)	25,000 calls ($20)
Credit Pack (Scale)	100,000 calls ($50)
Pay-as-you-go	Unlimited ($0.002/call)
Enterprise	Custom

Response headers

Every response includes rate limit headers:

# Per-minute burst headers
X-RateLimit-Burst-Limit: 30
X-RateLimit-Burst-Remaining: 28

# Usage headers (credit packs and pay-as-you-go):
X-Usage-Current: 45230
X-Usage-Period: 2026-03
X-Credits-Remaining: 4770

When rate limited

You'll receive a 429 response with a clear error:

{
  "error": {
    "code": "rate_limit/burst_exceeded",
    "message": "Too many requests. Limit is 30 requests per minute.",
    "suggestion": "Wait a few seconds and retry. Consider upgrading for higher burst limits.",
    "docs": "https://chowapi.dev/docs/rate-limits"
  }
}