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). These are mainly intended to protect against excessive use by automated services rather than impacting typical users. These limits are currently: -
| Action | Limit (per hour) | Limit (per day) |
|---|---|---|
| Shortening a URL | 200 | 4,800 |
| Shortening a URL with optional access statistics turned on | 100 | 2,400 |
| Looking up a shortened URL | 3,600 | 86,400 |
| Viewing URL statistics | 60 | 1,440 |
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 hourly limit for easy reference.
These limits use a combined counter so, for example, you couldn't look up 3,600 URLs and also shorten 200 within the same hour.