Rate Limits

Limits by tier

Tier	Requests / month	Requests / minute	Verification credits
Free	2,000	10	10
Pro	50,000	100	500
Growth	500,000	500	5,000
Enterprise	Custom	Custom	Custom

See Pricing for plan costs and credit top-ups.

Response headers

Every API response includes rate limit headers:

Header	Description
X-RateLimit-Limit	Your per-minute request limit
X-RateLimit-Remaining	Requests remaining in the current minute window
X-RateLimit-Reset	Unix timestamp when the current window resets
Retry-After	Seconds to wait before retrying (only on 429 responses)

When you hit the limit

You'll receive a 429 (Too Many Requests) response:

{
  "error": "rate_limit_exceeded",
  "message": "You have exceeded your request limit. Retry after 47 seconds.",
  "code": 429,
  "retry_after": 47
}

Retry guidance

Use exponential backoff when you receive a 429:

import time
import requests

def verify_with_backoff(payload, api_key, max_retries=5):
    delay = 1
    for attempt in range(max_retries):
        resp = requests.post(
            "https://api.policynumbers.com/api/v1/verify",
            headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {api_key}"},
            json=payload,
        )
        if resp.status_code != 429:
            return resp
        retry_after = int(resp.headers.get("Retry-After", delay))
        time.sleep(retry_after)
        delay = min(delay * 2, 60)
    raise Exception("Rate limit retries exhausted")

Start with the Retry-After value from the header. If absent, start at 1 second and double each attempt, capping at 60 seconds.

Monthly reset

Monthly request counts reset on the first day of each calendar month (UTC midnight). Unused requests do not roll over.