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

# API Rate Limits and 429 Handling

> Default per-organization rate limits for the Lilac inference API, how 429 Too Many Requests responses work, and recommended retry and backoff behavior.

The Lilac API applies a default rate limit per organization to keep shared inference capacity fair across customers.

## Default Limit

* **200 requests per minute per organization.**

This limit applies to all Lilac API requests, including inference calls (chat completions, completions, and responses).

## 429 Too Many Requests

Requests above the limit may receive an HTTP `429 Too Many Requests` response. When this happens:

* Back off and retry later.
* If a `Retry-After` header or `retry_after` field is present, respect it.
* Use exponential backoff for automated clients.

### Example

```bash theme={null}
curl -i https://api.getlilac.com/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer your-lilac-api-key" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "model": "moonshotai/kimi-k2.6", "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "hi"}] }'

# HTTP/1.1 429 Too Many Requests
# Retry-After: 12
```

When using the OpenAI SDK, `429` responses are surfaced as `RateLimitError` (Python) / `RateLimitError` (JS). The SDK will retry transient errors with exponential backoff by default — keep that behavior or implement your own.

## Higher Limits

Need more than 200 requests per minute? Contact [Lilac support](mailto:contact@getlilac.com) or [book a call with the founders](https://calendly.com/d/ctxy-jd8-585/lilac-support) to discuss higher limits.