An API rate limit is a cap on how many requests a tool can send to the HighLevel API in a period of time. For HighLevel's API v2, the documented limits (as of October 2026) are:
| Limit | Amount |
|---|---|
| Burst | 100 requests per 10 seconds |
| Daily | 200,000 requests per day |
The limits apply per marketplace app for each resource, meaning each sub-account (location) or agency (company) it's installed on. An app installed in 40 sub-accounts has 40 separate budgets. Going over the limit returns an HTTP 429 error until the window resets.
In practice
Every API response includes headers showing where you stand: X-RateLimit-Remaining and X-RateLimit-Max for the burst window, X-RateLimit-Interval-Milliseconds for its length, and X-RateLimit-Daily-Remaining and X-RateLimit-Limit-Daily for the day. HighLevel says to rely on these headers rather than counting requests yourself.
Rate limits rarely matter for a small script that updates a few contacts. They matter a lot for jobs that touch everything in a sub-account: exporting full message history, downloading every contact's files, or checking reply history for thousands of blast recipients. Those jobs need to pace themselves, back off on 429s, and resume where they stopped rather than starting over.
Where it shows up in RGS Tools
Backup & Insights's monthly backups run as incremental jobs that resume on their own and respect API limits. Conversation Exporter's background exports let a large export keep running after you close the tab, and Backup & Insights's file backup handles whole sub-accounts the same way.