Rate limits & credits
How Topolab meters the API, credit costs per endpoint, the free monthly allowance, and the request rate limits.
Rate limits & credits
Two independent meters apply: credits (what a call costs) and rate limits (how fast you can call).
Credits
Data-bearing calls consume credits from your monthly allowance. The free tier includes 10,000 credits per month, no card required; paid plans raise the allowance.
| Call | Credit cost |
|---|---|
Full dataset download (/v1/dataset/:table/files/:format) |
10 |
Coordinates (/v1/dataset/:table/coordinates) |
15 |
OGC items (/v1/ogc/collections/:table/items) |
10 |
OGC single feature (/items/:featureId) |
1 |
SQL query (/v1/sql/query) |
25 |
| Archive month download | Tier-scaled: 20 (basic), 10 (team), 0 (enterprise) |
| Listing, metadata, and free samples | 0 |
Public endpoints, GET /v1/dataset/all, GET /v1/dataset/:table, GET /v1/dataset/:table/sample/:format, cost no credits, so you can browse and inspect before spending.
Track consumption from the account portal or via the API:
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer ..." \
"https://api.topolab.nl/v1/credits/{organizationId}/api-usage?startDate=2026-05-01&endDate=2026-05-31"
See Usage stats for the full reporting endpoints.
Rate limits
Requests are rate-limited per key across rolling windows:
| Window | Limit |
|---|---|
| Per second | 50 requests |
| Per 10 seconds | 200 requests |
| Per minute | 1,000 requests |
Exceeding a window returns 429 Too Many Requests. Back off and retry with exponential delay; batch where you can (for example, page through items with limit up to 1,000 on the OGC API rather than fetching features one by one).
Handling limits well
- Cache dataset files locally and refresh on the dataset's cadence rather than re-downloading.
- Use samples (free) during development; spend credits only on real pulls.
- Read
429as a signal to slow down, not to retry immediately. - Monitor usage via
/v1/credits/{organizationId}/api-usageand set your own alerts.