Rate limits and billing

Rate limits

Limits are per key, counted separately for reads and writes, so a burst of uploads can't starve your polling loop.

Every response carries the remaining allowance:

X-Rate-Limit-Remaining: 287

Exceeding a bucket returns 429 with a Retry-After header (in seconds):

async function withRetry(request, attempts = 5) {
  for (let attempt = 0; attempt < attempts; attempt++) {
    const res = await request();
    if (res.status !== 429) return res;
    const wait = Number(res.headers.get('Retry-After') ?? 2 ** attempt);
    await new Promise((r) => setTimeout(r, wait * 1000));
  }
  throw new Error('rate limited');
}

If you need a higher ceiling, get in touch — these are starting values, not hard architectural limits.

Billing

API usage draws on the same plan as the app. There's no separate API price and no per-request charge: you're billed for audio processed, by duration, against the organization's allowance plus any top-up hours.

Usage is recorded after transcription succeeds, so a failed upload doesn't consume allowance, and a duplicate upload rejected with 409 isn't charged.

When the allowance runs out

Uploads are rejected with 402 Payment Required before the file is stored:

{ "message": "Audio allowance exhausted", "status": 402 }

You'll also see 402 with "Trial period ended" or "No active plan". Reads keep working — only new uploads are blocked. Top up or change plan in the app's billing page, and uploads resume immediately.