Usage limits
We place rate limits on accessing our service to make sure usage doesn't exceed levels that we consider reasonable (given that we're providing a free service without 3rd party advertising). Our limits are fairly high since they're intended to protect against excessive use by automated services rather than impacting normal users. These limits are currently: -
| Action | Limit (per minute) | Limit (per day) |
|---|---|---|
| Shortening a URL | 30 | 43,200 |
| Shortening a URL with optional access statistics turned on | 15 | 21,600 |
| Looking up a shortened URL | 60 | 86,400 |
| Viewing URL statistics | 12 | 17,280 |
These limits are enforced on a per-IP basis, so you'd typically only encounter them when a single machine or server makes heavy use of our resources. API apps that run on client machines, browser plugins etc. would typically not run into them. Note that there isn't a specific limit per day, we've just calculated the maximum usage you could make within the per minute limit for easy reference.
These limits use a combined counter so, for example, you couldn't look up 60 URLs and also shorten 30 within the same minute.