Rate Limits

Contrie is free during beta. Live extraction requires an API key: 10 requests per minute per key (sliding window) and 1,000 credits per month per account, reset on the 1st of the calendar month. Sample URLs run without a key and don't count against either limit.

Access Modes

Mode	Rate	Monthly Quota	Notes
Sample URLs	Unlimited	Doesn't count	Recorded runs, no key needed — see Scrape for the list
API key (live)	10 req/min	1,000 credits	Charged only for answers: 1 credit for a markdown read or a free/budget-tier extraction, 3 for standard/vision/premium, 10 for frontier; failures and results under 70 cost 0

When You Hit a Limit

Both limits return HTTP 429 but with different codes:

429 — per-minute limit

{
  "success": false,
  "error": {
    "code": "RATE_LIMITED",
    "message": "Too many requests. Please slow down."
  }
}

429 — monthly quota

{
  "success": false,
  "error": {
    "code": "PAGE_LIMIT_REACHED",
    "message": "Monthly credit limit reached (1,000 credits on the free plan). Credits reset on the 1st."
  }
}

A RATE_LIMITED response carries a Retry-After header (seconds until the window resets). PAGE_LIMIT_REACHED doesn't, since the account-level quota resets on the 1st of the month, not on a short timer.

Rate Limit Headers

Header	When	Description
X-RateLimit-Remaining	Every keyed request	Requests left in the current one-minute window
Retry-After	`RATE_LIMITED` responses only	Seconds until the per-minute window resets