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Overview

PromptGuard implements two types of limits to ensure fair usage and system stability:
  1. Monthly Request Quotas - Based on your subscription plan
  2. Rate Limiting - Maximum requests per minute (anti-abuse)

Monthly Request Quotas

Your subscription plan determines how many requests you get per month:

Hard vs Soft Limits

Free and Pro plans use hard limits:
  • When you exceed your monthly quota, requests return 429 Too Many Requests
  • You must upgrade to continue using the service
  • Free (10K) → Upgrade to Pro (100K)
  • Pro (100K) → Upgrade to Scale (1M)
Scale plan uses a soft quota with a hard spend cap:
  • When you exceed 500K requests/month, requests continue processing
  • Overage is metered at $0.40 per 1,000 requests
  • You receive email alerts about overage
  • Spending is bounded by your cap (default $500); past it requests return 429 until you raise it
  • Overage is logged for analytics and billing
Example (Scale plan):

Checking Your Usage

View current usage in the dashboard:
Or via API:

Rate Limiting

PromptGuard enforces per-plan, per-account rate limits on all /api/v1/* endpoints: These limits apply to your whole account; adding more API keys does not increase them. Separately, a Cloud Armor anti-abuse layer enforces a per-IP request limit at the network edge. The per-IP limit is independent of your plan and exists to block abusive traffic.

Rate Limit Headers

Every /api/v1/* response carries your plan’s limit and the window reset:
X-RateLimit-Remaining does not count down against X-RateLimit-Limit. It is emitted by the network-edge anti-abuse layer, tracks a per-IP window rather than your plan, and is absent on many responses. Do not build backoff logic that requires it — use X-RateLimit-Limit with X-RateLimit-Reset, and treat a 429 plus Retry-After as the authoritative signal.
Enterprise organizations can request custom rate limits by contacting sales.

Handling Rate Limits

If you exceed your plan’s per-minute rate limit, you’ll receive a 429 Too Many Requests response:
Recommended handling:

Idempotency Keys

For safe retries of POST/PUT/PATCH requests, include an Idempotency-Key header:
If you retry the same request with the same idempotency key within 24 hours, you’ll get back the cached response with an X-Idempotency-Replayed: true header. This prevents duplicate operations.
Idempotency keys are scoped to your API key and expire after 24 hours.

Best Practices

1. Implement Exponential Backoff

2. Monitor Usage Proactively

Set up monitoring to alert before you hit limits:

3. Batch Requests When Possible

Instead of:
Use batch processing:

4. Cache Responses

Cache frequently requested results:

Upgrading for Higher Limits

Need higher rate limits or custom quotas? Enterprise plans offer:
  • Custom rate limits per organization
  • Custom monthly request quotas
  • IP allowlisting for API access control
  • Idempotency keys for safe retries
  • Dedicated support and SLA guarantees
Contact us at sales@promptguard.co for Enterprise pricing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do different plans have different rate limits?

Rate limits scale with your plan tier (Free: 60/min, Pro: 300/min, Scale: 600/min, Enterprise: 1,000/min). These are per-account limits. The Cloud Armor per-IP limit is a separate anti-abuse layer at the network edge.

What happens if I consistently go over my monthly quota?

For Free and Pro plans, requests are blocked with 429 errors. For Scale and Enterprise plans, requests continue processing — we never block paying customers in production. You’ll receive email alerts at 80%, 90%, and 100% usage thresholds.

Can I increase my rate limit?

Yes. Enterprise plans support custom rate limits configured per organization. Contact sales@promptguard.co.

Do retries count against my quota?

Yes. Every request to our API counts, including retries. Implement smart retry logic with exponential backoff to minimize wasted quota.

How is usage calculated?

One request = one API call to /api/v1/chat/completions or /api/v1/completions, regardless of:
  • Number of tokens
  • Response length
  • Model used

Monitoring Tools

Dashboard Analytics

Track usage in real-time:
  • Current period usage
  • Daily/weekly/monthly trends
  • Over-quota events
  • Rate limit hits

Usage API

Programmatically monitor usage:
Returns:

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