Rate Limits & Credits

Rate Limits

Rate limits apply per API key using a sliding-window algorithm:

When a limit is exceeded, the API returns:

HTTP 429
{
  "error_code": "quota_exceeded",
  "message": "per-minute limit (20/min) exceeded"
}

Retry strategy: Wait at least 60 seconds before retrying after a 429. Do not retry immediately — the window is sliding, so rapid retries continue to hit the limit.

import time, httpx

def post_with_rate_limit_retry(url, **kwargs):
    for attempt in range(4):
        resp = httpx.post(url, **kwargs)
        if resp.status_code != 429:
            resp.raise_for_status()
            return resp
        wait = 60 * (2 ** attempt)  # 60s, 120s, 240s, 480s
        print(f"Rate limited, waiting {wait}s...")
        time.sleep(wait)
    raise RuntimeError("Exceeded retry attempts")

Credits

Makistry uses a credit system to meter API usage. Credits are checked and reserved when you submit a job, then consumed when the job succeeds.

Credit Costs

Credits are consumed based on the tokens used by a completed job.

tokens_used is reported on every successful JobOut response, so you can track actual cost per job.

A minimum credit balance is required to submit a job (checked at request time):

If your balance is below the minimum when you submit, the request is rejected immediately with 402 insufficient_credits — no job is queued. Higher-complexity modes (pro, assembly) use more tokens on average and therefore consume more credits per job, but the exact amount depends on the specific design.

Note: image-to-cad supports only "standard" and "assembly" modes — "pro" is not available for the image endpoint. Sending "pro" to /v1/image-to-cad returns 422 invalid_input.

For current credit-to-dollar pricing (credit pack options and per-credit rates), see the dashboard billing page.

Running Out of Credits

If your account has insufficient credits when you submit a job, the request is rejected immediately:

HTTP 402
{
  "error_code": "insufficient_credits"
}

The job is not queued. Top up credits from the dashboard before resubmitting.

Free Credits

New API keys receive a free credit allocation on creation, shown as free_credits_remaining in the key creation response.

Monitoring Usage

Every completed JobOut includes:

Use these to estimate costs and optimize your design_mode selection. standard mode is significantly cheaper for simple parts; only use pro or assembly when the geometry requires it.