Sentinel Hub · Rate Limits

Sentinel Hub Rate Limits

Sentinel Hub enforces per-minute rate limits on both Processing Units (PUs) and HTTP requests. All limits are minute-based and must simultaneously be satisfied. Unused PUs and requests do not accumulate to the next minute or month. Exceeding either limit returns HTTP 429 with a Retry-After header (milliseconds until next available slot). Exceeding monthly quota returns HTTP 403. Trial accounts are limited to 10 requests and 10 PUs per minute.

Sentinel Hub Rate Limits is the machine-readable rate-limit profile for Sentinel Hub on the APIs.io network, conforming to the API Commons Rate Limits specification.

It captures 4 rate-limit definitions, measuring processing-units-per-minute, requests-per-minute, processing-units-per-month, and token-requests-per-minute.

The profile also includes 4 backoff/retry policies defined and response codes documented for throttled, quotaExceeded, and headers.

Tagged areas include Satellite Imagery, Geospatial, Rate Limiting, and Processing Units.

4 Limits Throttle: 429 Quota: 403
Satellite ImageryGeospatialRate LimitingProcessing Units

Limits

Processing Units per Minute account
processing-units-per-minute · minute
varies by subscription tier (10 for trial)
All subscription types use minute-based PU limiting. Batch Processing API requests consume 1/3 PUs; Async Processing API requests consume 2/3 PUs for areas >=10,000 px.
HTTP Requests per Minute account
requests-per-minute · minute
varies by subscription tier (10 for trial)
Separate from PU limit; both must be satisfied simultaneously. Token (OAuth2) requests themselves are also rate-limited — reuse tokens within their validity window.
Processing Units per Month account
processing-units-per-month · month
varies by subscription package
Monthly allocation resets on the 1st of each calendar month regardless of subscription start date. Unused PUs are forfeited at reset.
OAuth2 Token Requests account
token-requests-per-minute · minute
rate-limited (exact value not published)
Excessive token requests trigger HTTP 429. Reuse JWT access tokens for their full validity period rather than fetching a new token per API call.

Policies

Burst Spreading
Distribute requests evenly across the rate-limit window rather than bursting at the start of the minute. For a 10 RPM plan, send one request every 6 seconds.
Exponential Backoff
On HTTP 429, wait for the Retry-After interval then retry with exponentially increasing back-off and random jitter to avoid thundering-herd after a rate-limit window resets.
Token Reuse
Cache OAuth2 JWT access tokens and reuse them until near-expiry (check the exp claim). Requesting a new token per API call can itself trigger rate limiting.
Response Caching
Cache API responses for frequently-requested area/time combinations to reduce PU consumption and request counts.

Sources