Documenso Rate Limits
Overview
Documenso uses a fair-use rate limiting model. There are no published per-minute request quotas -- instead, limits are based on your plan's document allowance and general API fair use. The paid plans (Individual and Team) include unlimited signing and API volume. The free plan has a document limit. If you hit a 429, implement exponential backoff and request queuing.
Prerequisites
- Documenso SDK installed
- Understanding of async/await patterns
- Completed
documenso-install-authsetup
Documenso Fair Use Model
| Plan | Documents | API Volume | Signing Volume | |------|-----------|------------|----------------| | Free | Limited (per plan) | Fair use | Fair use | | Individual ($30/mo) | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | | Team | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | | Enterprise | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | | Self-Hosted | Unlimited | No limits | No limits |
Documenso explicitly does not price API usage -- they want developers to build on the platform without API cost concerns. The practical limit is abusive traffic patterns (thousands of requests per second).
Instructions
Step 1: Exponential Backoff with Jitter
// src/documenso/retry.ts
interface RetryConfig {
maxRetries: number;
baseDelayMs: number;
maxDelayMs: number;
}
const DEFAULTS: RetryConfig = { maxRetries: 5, baseDelayMs: 1000, maxDelayMs: 60000 };
export async function withRetry<T>(
fn: () => Promise<T>,
config: Partial<RetryConfig> = {}
): Promise<T> {
const { maxRetries, baseDelayMs, maxDelayMs } = { ...DEFAULTS, ...config };
let lastError: Error | undefined;
for (let attempt = 0; attempt <= maxRetries; attempt++) {
try {
return await fn();
} catch (err: any) {
lastError = err;
const status = err.statusCode ?? err.status;
// Don't retry client errors (except 429)
if (status && status >= 400 && status < 500 && status !== 429) {
throw err;
}
if (attempt === maxRetries) break;
// Exponential backoff with jitter
const delay = Math.min(baseDelayMs * 2 ** attempt, maxDelayMs);
const jitter = delay * (0.5 + Math.random() * 0.5);
console.warn(`Retry ${attempt + 1}/${maxRetries} in ${Math.round(jitter)}ms (status: ${status})`);
await new Promise((r) => setTimeout(r, jitter));
}
}
throw lastError!;
}
Step 2: Request Queue for Bulk Operations
// src/documenso/queue.ts
import PQueue from "p-queue";
// Limit concurrency to avoid overwhelming the API
const queue = new PQueue({ concurrency: 5, interval: 1000, intervalCap: 10 });
export async function queuedRequest<T>(fn: () => Promise<T>): Promise<T> {
return queue.add(fn) as Promise<T>;
}
// Usage: bulk document creation
async function createBulkDocuments(
client: Documenso,
items: Array<{ title: string; pdfPath: string }>
) {
const results = await Promise.allSettled(
items.map((item) =>
queuedRequest(async () => {
const doc = await client.documents.createV0({ title: item.title });
const pdf = readFileSync(item.pdfPath);
await client.documents.setFileV0(doc.documentId, {
file: new Blob([pdf], { type: "application/pdf" }),
});
return doc;
})
)
);
const succeeded = results.filter((r) => r.status === "fulfilled").length;
const failed = results.filter((r) => r.status === "rejected").length;
console.log(`Bulk create: ${succeeded} succeeded, ${failed} failed`);
return results;
}
Step 3: Circuit Breaker for Outages
// src/documenso/circuit-breaker.ts
class CircuitBreaker {
private failures = 0;
private lastFailure = 0;
private state: "closed" | "open" | "half-open" = "closed";
constructor(
private threshold = 5, // failures before opening
private resetTimeMs = 30000 // time before half-open
) {}
async execute<T>(fn: () => Promise<T>): Promise<T> {
if (this.state === "open") {
if (Date.now() - this.lastFailure > this.resetTimeMs) {
this.state = "half-open";
} else {
throw new Error("Circuit breaker is open — Documenso API unavailable");
}
}
try {
const result = await fn();
this.onSuccess();
return result;
} catch (err) {
this.onFailure();
throw err;
}
}
private onSuccess() {
this.failures = 0;
this.state = "closed";
}
private onFailure() {
this.failures++;
this.lastFailure = Date.now();
if (this.failures >= this.threshold) {
this.state = "open";
console.error(`Circuit breaker OPEN after ${this.failures} failures`);
}
}
}
// Usage
const breaker = new CircuitBreaker();
const doc = await breaker.execute(() => client.documents.findV0({ page: 1, perPage: 10 }));
Step 4: Python Retry
import time, random
def with_retry(fn, max_retries=5, base_delay=1.0):
for attempt in range(max_retries + 1):
try:
return fn()
except Exception as e:
status = getattr(e, "status_code", None)
if status and 400 <= status < 500 and status != 429:
raise
if attempt == max_retries:
raise
delay = min(base_delay * (2 ** attempt), 60)
jitter = delay * (0.5 + random.random() * 0.5)
print(f"Retry {attempt + 1}/{max_retries} in {jitter:.1f}s")
time.sleep(jitter)
# Usage
docs = with_retry(lambda: client.documents.find_v0(page=1, per_page=10))
Error Handling
| Scenario | Response Code | Action | |----------|--------------|--------| | Rate limited | 429 | Exponential backoff with jitter | | Server error | 500/502/503 | Retry up to 5 times | | Documenso outage | Persistent 5xx | Circuit breaker, degrade gracefully | | Auth error | 401/403 | Do NOT retry -- fix credentials |
Resources
Next Steps
For security configuration, see documenso-security-basics.