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Rate limits are an important feature that allows you to control the number of requests made with your API key within a specific time window. For example, you can limit users to 1000 requests per day or 60 requests per minute. By implementing rate limits, you can prevent abuse while protecting your resources from being overwhelmed by excessive traffic.

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Why Rate Limit

  • Prevent abuse of the API: Limit the total requests a user can make in a given period to control cost.
  • Protect resources from excessive traffic: Maintain availability for all users.
  • Control operational cost: Limit the total number of requests sent and total cost.
  • Comply with third-party API usage policies: Each model provider has their own rate limit for your key. Helicone’s rate limit is bounded by your provider’s policy.

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Quick Start

Set up rate limiting by adding the Helicone-RateLimit-Policy header to your requests: 
const response = await client.chat.completions.create(
  {
    model: "gpt-4o-mini",
    messages: [{ role: "user", content: "Hello!" }]
  },
  {
    headers: {
      "Helicone-RateLimit-Policy": "1000;w=3600"  // 1000 requests per hour
    }
  }
);
This creates a global rate limit of 1000 requests per hour for your entire application.

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Configuration Reference

The Helicone-RateLimit-Policy header uses this format: 
"Helicone-RateLimit-Policy": "[quota];w=[time_window];u=[unit];s=[segment]"

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Parameters

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quota
number
required
Maximum number of requests (or cost in cents) allowed within the time window.Example: 1000 for 1000 requests
​
w
number
required
Time window in seconds. Minimum is 60 seconds.Example: 3600 for 1 hour, 86400 for 1 day
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u
string
Unit type: request (default) or cents for cost-based limiting.Example: u=cents to limit by spending instead of request count
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s
string
Segment type: user for per-user limits, or custom property name for per-property limits. Omit for global limits.Example: s=user or s=organization
This header format follows the IETF standard for rate limit headers (except for our custom segment field)!

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Rate Limiting Scopes

Helicone supports three types of rate limiting based on who or what you want to limit:

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Global Rate Limiting

Applies the same limit across all requests using your API key. Use case: “Limit my entire application to 10,000 requests per hour”

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Per-User Rate Limiting

Applies separate limits for each user ID. Use case: “Each user can make 1,000 requests per day”

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Per-Property Rate Limiting

Applies separate limits for each custom property value. Use case: “Each organization can make 5,000 requests per hour”

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Common Use Cases

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Global Application Limits

Limit your entire application’s usage: 
import { OpenAI } from "openai";

const client = new OpenAI({
  baseURL: "https://ai-gateway.helicone.ai",
  apiKey: process.env.HELICONE_API_KEY,
});

const response = await client.chat.completions.create(
  {
    model: "gpt-4o-mini",
    messages: [{ role: "user", content: "Hello!" }]
  },
  {
    headers: {
      "Helicone-RateLimit-Policy": "10000;w=3600"  // 10k requests per hour
    }
  }
);

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Per-User Limits

Limit each user individually: 
// Each user gets 1000 requests per day
const response = await client.chat.completions.create(
  {
    model: "gpt-4o-mini",
    messages: [{ role: "user", content: userQuery }]
  },
  {
    headers: {
      "Helicone-User-Id": userId,  // Required for per-user limits
      "Helicone-RateLimit-Policy": "1000;w=86400;s=user"
    }
  }
);
Per-user rate limiting requires the Helicone-User-Id header. See User Metrics for more details.

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Cost-Based Limits

Limit by spending instead of request count: 
// Limit to $5.00 per hour per user
const response = await client.chat.completions.create(
  {
    model: "gpt-4o",
    messages: [{ role: "user", content: expensiveQuery }]
  },
  {
    headers: {
      "Helicone-User-Id": userId,
      "Helicone-RateLimit-Policy": "500;w=3600;u=cents;s=user"  // 500 cents = $5
    }
  }
);

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Custom Property Limits

Limit by custom properties like organization or tier: 
// Each organization gets 5000 requests per hour
const response = await client.chat.completions.create(
  {
    model: "gpt-4o-mini",
    messages: [{ role: "user", content: "Hello!" }]
  },
  {
    headers: {
      "Helicone-Property-Organization": orgId,  // Required for per-property limits
      "Helicone-RateLimit-Policy": "5000;w=3600;s=organization"
    }
  }
);

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Extracting Rate Limit Response Headers

Extracting the headers allows you to test your rate limit policy in a local environment before deploying to production. If your rate limit policy is active, the following headers will be returned: 
Helicone-RateLimit-Limit: "number" // the request/cost quota allowed in the time window.
Helicone-RateLimit-Policy: "[quota];w=[time_window];u=[unit];s=[segment]" // the active rate limit policy.
Helicone-RateLimit-Remaining: "number" // the remaining quota in the time window.
  • Helicone-RateLimit-Limit: The quota for the number of requests allowed in the time window.
  • Helicone-RateLimit-Policy: The active rate limit policy.
  • Helicone-RateLimit-Remaining: The remaining quota in the current window.
If a request is rate-limited, a 429 rate limit error will be returned.

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Latency Considerations

Using rate limits adds a small amount of latency to your requests. This feature is deployed with Cloudflare’s key-value data store, which is a low-latency service that stores data in a small number of centralized data centers and caches that data in Cloudflare’s data centers after access. The latency add-on is minimal compared to multi-second OpenAI requests.

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Coming Soon

  • Token-based rate limiting - Limit by number of tokens instead of just request count or cost
  • Multiple rate limit policies - Apply multiple rate limiting criteria to a single request (e.g., limit by both request count AND cost simultaneously)
Additional questions or feedback? Reach out to help@helicone.ai or schedule a call with us.