> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.extend.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Rate Limits

Each plan tier includes rate limits to ensure system stability and fair resource allocation:

| Plan       | QPS (Queries Per Second) | Runs Per Minute |
| ---------- | ------------------------ | --------------- |
| PAYG       | 10                       | 80              |
| Scale      | 25+                      | 120+            |
| Enterprise | 75+                      | 300+            |

## What counts as a run?

One run equals processing one file through any of the following operations:

* Classification
* Extraction
* Splitting
* Parsing

## Rate limit types

**QPS (Queries Per Second)**: Global API rate limiting across all endpoints

**Runs Per Minute**: Maximum number of file processing operations per minute

## Handling rate limits

When you exceed a rate limit, the API responds with HTTP `429 Too Many Requests` and the error code `RATE_LIMIT_EXCEEDED`. This error is `retryable` — see [Error Handling](/api-reference/error-handling) for the full error shape.

```http
HTTP/1.1 429 Too Many Requests
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "code": "RATE_LIMIT_EXCEEDED",
  "message": "Too many requests. Back off and retry.",
  "retryable": true
}
```

To handle this gracefully:

* **Back off and retry.** Retry the request with exponential backoff and jitter. If a `Retry-After` header is present on the response, wait at least that many seconds before retrying.
* **Prefer async for volume.** For high-throughput workloads, use the asynchronous run endpoints and [batch processing](/general/batch-processing) rather than driving many synchronous calls.

The official SDKs retry retryable responses (including `429`) automatically with backoff.

## Need higher limits?

The `+` on the Scale and Enterprise tiers indicates the limits are negotiated and tied to committed volume — they start at the listed value and increase from there. If you'd like to get higher rate limits, please reach out to the Extend team.