API Rate Limiting

Twitter Rate Limiting

This page concerns rate limits imposed by DataSift's API to ensure fair usage of the platform.

You might also encounter Twitter Rate Limiting. Twitter imposes a limit on the number of Tweets that you can receive in a 24-hour period. At the time of writing that limit is 500,000 Tweets. If you hit your rate limit you will temporarily be unable to continue to receive Twitter data. Please contact our Support desk if you need guidance on this issue.

API Rate Limit Cost

Keep the API Rate Limit Cost in mind:​

• There is no limit to the number of requests you can send to the Streaming API
• There is no limit to the number of requests you can send  to the /stream endpoint of the REST API.
• All other API requests have a Rate Limit Cost.

DataSift gives you 10,000 credits and replenishes them every hour. If the Rate Limit Cost of validating a filter is 5 credits and you validate it four times, the total cost is 20 credits, leaving you with a balance of 9,980 credits for the current hour.

If this limit causes your application any problems, please contact DataSift Support.

The DataSift 'hour' starts when you first hit the API. For example, if you compile a rule at 8:05 am and consume all of your 10,000 credits by 8:50 am, DataSift will give you another 10,000 credits at 9:05 am. These credits are free of charge; there is no dollar equivalent. We've documented the Rate Limit Cost for each endpoint in a summary box that looks like this:

Rate limiting is based on the type and the number of requests. You can determine the cost of an API request by inspecting the X-RateLimit-Cost- header.

Response Headers

Every time you make a request to the API we will return the current rate status in the response header. Look for the following keys:

If the X-RateLimit-Remaining falls to 0, you are rate limited. Wait up to an 1 hour for the next 10,000 credits to reach your account.

If you hit your API limit, all subsequent requests will fail with a suitable error message and HTTP response code of 403.