Guide

Spotify API rate limits: the official rolling window, and what each plan here allows

Spotify does not publish a number. This API does: 5 requests per second on RapidAPI, 10 on the direct portal, and a monthly quota per plan. This page puts the two side by side, shows what a 429 looks like on each, and gives the client code that stays under the limit without thinking about it.

By Eduardo Airaudo, maintainer of the API · Updated 15 September 2026

How Spotify's own limit works

The Web API's rate limit is computed over a rolling 30-second window of calls made by your app, and Spotify states no figure for it. Development-mode apps get a lower allowance than apps in extended quota mode, and the only way to learn where the line is, is to cross it: a 429 Too Many Requests with a Retry-After header giving the seconds to wait.

Two things follow. A limit you cannot read cannot be planned for, so every Spotify client needs backoff code from day one. And because the window is per app, not per key, a single busy customer can push every other user of your app into 429s.

The limits here, per plan

Per-second limits are per key and do not change between plans; the plans differ in monthly volume. Prices as listed on each platform on 15 September 2026 — the pricing page has the per-request cost at four volumes.

Route	Plan	Per second	Per month	Price
RapidAPI	Basic	5 req/s	1,000 requests	$0/mo
RapidAPI	Pro	5 req/s	20,000 requests	$10/mo
RapidAPI	Ultra	5 req/s	200,000 requests	$30/mo
RapidAPI	Mega	5 req/s	Unlimited requests	$200/mo
Direct portal	20K requests	10 req/s	20K requests	$9/mo
Direct portal	50K requests	10 req/s	50K requests	$13.50/mo
Direct portal	100K requests	10 req/s	100K requests	$18/mo
Direct portal	200K requests	10 req/s	200K requests	$27/mo
Direct portal	500K requests	10 req/s	500K requests	$67.50/mo
Direct portal	1M requests	10 req/s	1M requests	$135/mo
Direct portal	5M requests	10 req/s	5M requests	$675/mo

Apify runs are throttled per run rather than per second, and billed per result rather than per month — see the scraper guide. The live demo on this site allows 100 requests per 15 minutes and 500 a day per visitor, inside a budget every visitor shares; it is a demo, not a free tier.

Fewer calls: the batch endpoints

The cheapest request is the one you do not send. These accept a comma-separated ids list, so a playlist's worth of lookups is one call against the per-second limit and one against the monthly quota.

The three *_batch endpoints cap at 25 ids per call. /tracks, /artists and /albums take lists too. Chart endpoints answer with the whole chart in one response, and the demo caches every GET, charts for an hour.

Client code that stays under the limit

Two mechanisms, both small: a token bucket that spaces requests to the plan's per-second rate, and a retry on 429 that honours Retry-After when present and backs off exponentially when it is not. The official SDKs on the Node and Python pages wrap the same endpoints if you would rather not write this yourself.

// Paces calls to 5/s and retries 429s, honouring Retry-After.

const BASE = "https://spotify-proxy.checkleaked.cc";

const RATE = 5; // requests per second on your plan

let nextSlot = 0;

async function paced(path, params = {}, attempt = 0) {

const now = Date.now();

nextSlot = Math.max(nextSlot, now) + 1000 / RATE;

await new Promise((r) => setTimeout(r, nextSlot - now - 1000 / RATE));

const url = new URL(path, BASE);

url.search = new URLSearchParams(params).toString();

const res = await fetch(url, { headers: { "x-api-key": process.env.SPOTIFY_KEY } });

if (res.status === 429 && attempt < 5) {

const retryAfter = Number(res.headers.get("retry-after"));

const wait = retryAfter > 0 ? retryAfter * 1000 : 500 * 2 ** attempt;

await new Promise((r) => setTimeout(r, wait));

return paced(path, params, attempt + 1);

}

if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`${res.status} ${path}`);

return res.json();

}

// 25 ids per call: one request instead of twenty-five.

const overview = await paced("/artist_overview_batch", { ids: ids.slice(0, 25).join(",") });

Questions

What is the Spotify Web API rate limit?

Spotify does not publish a figure. The limit is calculated over a rolling 30-second window of your app's calls, is lower for development-mode apps than for extended-quota apps, and is reported only by a 429 response carrying a Retry-After header.

What are the rate limits on this API?

5 requests per second on every RapidAPI plan and 10 per second on every direct-portal plan, per key. Plans differ by monthly volume: RapidAPI from 1,000 requests a month free to unlimited, the direct portal from 20K to 5M a month.

What happens when I exceed it?

A 429 response. Wait for the Retry-After value when the response carries one, otherwise back off exponentially and retry; the snippets above do both. Monthly quota overruns on RapidAPI are governed by the plan's own overage terms on its pricing page.

Are the limits per key or per app?

Per key. Spotify's window is per registered app, which is why one heavy user of your app can rate-limit everyone; here each key you issue to a customer or a job has its own allowance.

How do I cut the number of requests?

Use the batch endpoints (25 ids per call), request lists with /tracks?ids=, /artists?ids= and /albums?ids=, and cache responses that change slowly — charts refresh daily, catalogue metadata rarely.

Is the demo on this site a free tier?

No. It is a demo: 100 requests per 15 minutes and 500 a day per visitor, from a budget every visitor shares, and only from a browser on this site. Scripts get a 403 pointing at the real API, where RapidAPI's Basic plan is free for 1,000 requests a month.

Sources

Rate Limits — Spotify for Developers — the rolling 30-second window, 429 and Retry-After, development mode versus extended quota.
Spotify81 pricing on RapidAPI — the four plans and their monthly quotas, as listed by the marketplace.
Direct portal — the seven volume tiers at 10 requests per second.

Pick the plan that fits your volume

5 requests a second from $0 on RapidAPI, 10 a second from $9 on the direct portal, or pay per result on Apify.

RapidAPI Direct Portal Apify