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Rate Limits

Naturalead enforces multiple rate limiting tiers to ensure fair usage and platform stability. All rate limits use a sliding window of 60 seconds.

Rate limit tiers

How tiers stack

A single request may count against multiple tiers simultaneously:
  1. Global — always applies (based on IP)
  2. API Key — applies when using API key auth
  3. Sync — applies only to lead sync endpoints (in addition to API key limit)
  4. Account — applies when account is resolved (bounds total across all keys)
The account limit (2,000/min) bounds total traffic regardless of how many API keys exist. Even if you have 10 keys, each at 500/min, the account total cannot exceed 2,000/min.

Response headers

All responses include rate limit headers following the IETF draft-7 standard:

Rate limit exceeded response

When a rate limit is exceeded, the API returns 429 Too Many Requests:
The specific error message varies by tier:

Best practices

Implement exponential backoff

When you receive a 429, wait for the Retry-After header value before retrying:

Monitor your usage

Check RateLimit-Remaining headers proactively to throttle before hitting limits.

Use bulk endpoints

For lead management, prefer the Lead Sync endpoint over individual creates. One sync request can process multiple leads, using only one count against the rate limit.

Spread requests evenly

Avoid bursting all requests at once. Distribute API calls evenly across the 60-second window for best throughput.