Rate Limits

Rate Limiting

Your API rate limit is based on your account tier. Your balance is checked separately before each request; it does not dynamically increase or decrease your RPM.

Account Tiers

Accounts are automatically assigned to a tier based on eligible successful payments.

Tier	Eligibility	RPM
`tier_0`	No eligible payment	6
`tier_1`	Eligible payments totaling at least $5	30
`tier_2`	Eligible payments totaling at least $50, with first eligible payment more than 7 days ago	120
`tier_3`	Eligible payments totaling at least $250, with first eligible payment more than 7 days ago	300
`tier_4`	Eligible payments totaling at least $1,000, with first eligible payment more than 14 days ago	600

Eligible payments are successful customer payments. Promotional credits, corrections, complimentary credits, and manual adjustments may not count toward automatic tier upgrades unless marked as eligible by PipeLLM.

Enterprise and Custom Limits

Enterprise customers can receive a custom RPM override. A custom override takes precedence over the automatic tier limit. Need higher limits? Contact us at support@pipellm.ai.

Balance Protection

To prevent unexpected overuse, the platform performs a real-time balance check before processing each request. If your balance is insufficient, the request will be rejected with a 402 status code.

Insufficient Balance Response (402)

{
  "error": {
    "type": "insufficient_balance",
    "code": "balance_exceeded",
    "message": "Insufficient balance. Please recharge to continue."
  }
}

Rate Limit Response (429)

{
  "error": {
    "type": "rate_limit_error",
    "code": "rate_limit_exceeded",
    "message": "Rate limit exceeded. Your current limit is 120 requests per minute (approximately 2.00 requests per second). Please visit https://console.pipellm.ai/billing to upgrade your plan for higher limits."
  }
}

Rate Limit Headers

Every API response includes rate limit information:

Header	Description
`x-ratelimit-limit-requests`	Your current RPM limit
`x-ratelimit-remaining-requests`	Remaining requests in this window
`x-ratelimit-reset-requests`	Time until the window resets

Overview

Using the API

OpenAI Compatible

Anthropic

Gemini

Rate Limiting

Account Tiers

Enterprise and Custom Limits

Balance Protection

Insufficient Balance Response (402)

Rate Limit Response (429)

Rate Limit Headers

​Rate Limiting

​Account Tiers

​Enterprise and Custom Limits

​Balance Protection

​Insufficient Balance Response (402)

​Rate Limit Response (429)

​Rate Limit Headers

Rate Limiting

Account Tiers

Enterprise and Custom Limits

Balance Protection

Insufficient Balance Response (402)

Rate Limit Response (429)

Rate Limit Headers