Limits

Every month

Every plan includes a number of requests per month; the table below shows how much each request counts. You see the number for your plan in your account on belscope.be, under API.

• Only successful answers count. An error never counts, see errors are free.
• Asking for the same company again counts again.

What counts as one request

Request	Counts as
One address of one company, such as Profile or Employees	1
Search	1 for every company in the answer; at least 1
Multiple companies	1 for every company found

Speed

Separate from the monthly number, there is a limit on how fast you send requests. It applies to each key and counts every request you send:

• at most 300 requests per minute;
• short bursts up to 10 per second, at most 20 in a row;
• at most 3 requests at the same time; more at once answer rate_limited too, wait a second and send again.

When you go over

The API answers with status 429 and a Retry-After header: the number of seconds to wait before you send the request again.

• Too fast: rate_limited. Wait that many seconds, then continue.
• Month used up: quota_exceeded. Retry-After gives the seconds until the next month starts.

Two more protections can answer rate_limited, for everyone:

• more than 20 requests with a key that does not exist, from one address within 10 minutes, block that address for unknown keys for 15 minutes; a valid key keeps working there;
• more than 300 requests from one address within 10 seconds are blocked for a short while by our network provider. That block answers with its own error page, not with a JSON error.

Your usage

You see how much you used in your account on belscope.be, under API.

More

Need more requests, or a different speed? Ask at info@belscope.be.