Rate limits
Requests to the Zendesk Support API may be subject to the following limits:
- Zendesk Suite plan limits
- Zendesk Support plan limits
- Endpoint rate limits
- External Content API limits
- Offset pagination limits
- Job limit
- Apps rate limit
- Account limit
- CPU-time limit
Notwithstanding the limits specified in this document, the system might still limit requests if it detects an unusual spike in requests from all sources for the account, including internal product requests. For example, this can happen in a denial-of-service attack. See Account limit.
Monitoring your request activity
You can compare your request activity in the last 24 hours against your rate limit. See Tracking API activity against your rate limit.
You can use the following response headers to confirm the account's current rate limit and monitor the number of requests remaining in the current minute:
X-Rate-Limit: 700X-Rate-Limit-Remaining: 699
If the rate limit is exceeded, the API responds with a 429 Too Many Requests status code. The response also has a Retry-After header that tells you how many seconds to wait before retrying API requests. Ensure your code handles 429 errors and waits the Retry-After interval before retrying requests.
For tips on avoiding and handling 429 errors, see Best practices for avoiding rate limiting.
Zendesk Suite plan limits
The following limits apply depending on your Zendesk Suite plan type.
| Limit | Team | Growth | Professional | Enterprise | Enterprise Plus |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Support and Help Center API requests per minute | 200 | 400 | 400 | 700 | 2500 |
| Chat API requests per minute | 200 | 200 | 200 | 200 | 200 |
| Custom objects (soft limit) | 3 | 5 | 30 | 50 | 50 |
| Custom object size | 32 KB | 32 KB | 32 KB | 32 KB | 32 KB |
| Legacy Custom Objects, Profiles, and Events API requests per minute | 250 | 250 | 500 | 700 | 1000 |
| Legacy Custom objects total | 100,000 | 100,000 | 250,000 | 1,000,000 | 25,000,000 |
| Legacy Relationships total | 100,000 | 100,000 | 250,000 | 1,000,000 | 25,000,000 |
| Legacy Relationship types (soft limit) | 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 |
| Events per month | 150,000 | 150,000 | 350,000 | 750,000 | 3,000,000 |
| Events retention period | 90 days | 90 days | 1 year | 1 year | 3 years |
| Profiles per person | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 |
| Events and Profiles source values | 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 |
| Events and Profiles type values | 2500 | 2500 | 2500 | 2500 | 2500 |
| Zendesk Events Connector - Zendesk events sent per minute | n/a | 5000* | 5000 | 5000 | 5000 |
*Only available with the High Volume API add-on.
You can increase the Support and Help Center API rate limits with the High Volume API add-on.
For additional information about limits, see:
Zendesk Support plan limits
The following Support, Help Center, and Custom Objects API rate limits apply on your Zendesk Support plan type.
| Plan | Requests per minute |
|---|---|
| Essential (legacy) | 10 |
| Team | 200 |
| Professional | 400 |
| Enterprise | 700 |
| High Volume API add-on | 2500 |
The rate limits for the Help Center API are the same as for the Support API. However, requests to the Help Center API don't count against the rate limit of the Support API, and conversely.
High Volume API add-on
The High Volume add-an increases a qualifying plan's limit to 2500 requests per minute to the Support and Help Center APIs. It doesn't add an additional 2500 requests to the plan's limit.
The add-on is available on the Zendesk Suite Growth plan and above, and the Zendesk Support Professional plan and above. You must have a minimum of 10 agent seats to purchase this add-on. The add-on is not required on the Zendesk Suite Enterprise Plus plan because the plan has a built-in rate limit of 2500.
Subject to Zendesk’s prior written consent, Zendesk may allow you to increase API usage limits beyond 2500 requests per minute for an additional fee.
Endpoint rate limits
Some endpoints have their own rate limit. For example, the Update Ticket endpoint has a rate limit of 30 updates to the same ticket by the same agent within a 10-minute period. Zendesk reserves the right to adjust the rate limit for given endpoints to provide a high quality of service for all clients.
| Name | Path | Rate limit |
|---|---|---|
| List Tickets | GET /api/v2/tickets.json?page={num} | 50 requests per minute where num is over 500 |
| Update Ticket | PUT /api/v2/tickets/{id}.json | 30 updates per 10 minutes per user per ticket. Note: This limit applies to any PUT request that updates tickets. For example, a user can have 20 updates on ticket A, 25 updates on ticket B, and 23 updates on ticket C, all within 10 minutes without any issues 100 requests per min per account 300 requests per min per account with the High Volume add-on |
| Incremental Exports global limit | GET /api/v2/incremental/* | 10 requests per minute |
| Incremental Exports with High Volume add-on | GET /api/v2/incremental/* | 30 requests per minute |
| Exporting Views | GET /api/v2/views/{id}/export.json | 100000 requests per hour |
| Update User | PUT /api/v2/users/{user_id} | 5 requests per minute per user 1 request per second per account |
| Create or Update User | POST /api/v2/users/create_or_update | 5 requests per minute per user 1 request per second per account |
| Export Search Results | GET /api/v2/search/export?query={query} | 100 requests per minute per account |
| Create Organization Membership | POST /api/v2/organization_memberships | 5 requests per minute |
| Update Organization | PUT /api/v2/organization/{organization_id} | 5 requests per minute per organization |
External Content API limits
The Help Center API rate limits apply to the External Content API if no stricter rate limit is documented in the following table.
Help Center API rate limits apply to searches performed through the Help Center API, but they do not apply to searches performed through the UI.
| Description | Limit |
|---|---|
| External record creation | 770 records per minute |
| External record size | 10000 bytes per record |
| External sources | 20 |
| External types | 20 |
| External records | 50000 |
Offset pagination limits
API requests that use offset pagination are subject to limits as described in Pagination.
Job limit
Some endpoints such as the Update Many Tickets endpoint queue background jobs to do the work. You can have up to 30 queued or running jobs at once. If you exceed the limit, you will receive a "TooManyJobs" error. Example:
{"error":"TooManyJobs","description":"Too many UserBulkUpdateJobV2 jobs are currently queued or running. Try again later.","current_job_ids":["14b1939441cb2e96d0c0835ede22ce03", ...]}
Apps rate limit
API requests made by Zendesk apps are subject to an additional rate limit of 100 requests per minute per user per app.
Account limit
Zendesk might limit requests if it detects an unusual spike in requests from all sources for the account, including internal product requests. For example, this can happen in a denial-of-service attack. The account-wide limit is 100,000 requests per minute.
CPU-time limit
Zendesk also tracks the CPU time an account consumes over time. If you're fetching large volumes of records and get a 429 error even though you're within the documented rate limits, it may be due to a CPU-time limit.