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I barely use the REST API. Why is my usage still so high?

REST API usage is measured not by the number of API calls alone, but by request credits, which depend on how much data each call retrieves.

Key points to understand:

  • CoinAPI uses a rolling 24-hour window to calculate usage
  • Each data request credit counts as one "request"
  • Some API endpoints return multiple data points per call
  • If the limit parameter is used, every 100 items returned counts as one request credit

Example:

If you make a single call to retrieve 10,000 OHLCV records using limit=10000, that counts as 100 requests (10,000 ÷ 100), not just 1.

So, while your logs may show only 85 API calls in a day, your total usage could reflect over 10,000 request credits—especially when pulling large data batches.

This can lead to exceeding the daily request quota for plans like Streamer, which has a 10,000 daily request limit, and result in HTTP 429 Too Many Requests errors.

For technical details, refer to the API documentation:

https://docs.coinapi.io/market-data/rest-api#request-limit--apikey