API Rules and Resource Limits

Developing with the CLM API is only available for CLM customers with a production account. To purchase a plan to gain access to the CLM API, contact Docusign Sales.

The Docusign CLM API has set rate limits on API usage to preserve resources. You can exceed the API rate limits in one of the following ways:

Exceeding the maximum number of requests per account per hour. This number is specified by the X-RateLimit-Limit header returned in the response to the rate limit error.
Exceeding the maximum number of concurrent requests for a single account. The maximum is 6,250 calls per 15-minute interval.

The rate limits should not be reached with normal API usage. If a rate limit is exceeded, a 429 HTTP response code is returned with additional information, including the maximum number of requests allowed, and the date and time when requests for the account can resume.

Example error messages

The following error objects are returned for requests that exceed the rate limits.

Exceeded the maximum number of requests per account per hour

{
  "Error":
  {
    "HttpStatusCode":429,
    "UserMessage":"Rate limit exceeded.",
    "DeveloperMessage":"Rate limit exceeded.",
    "ErrorCode":103,
    "ReferenceId":"5594dbc0-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-9721d441a1aa"
  }

Exceeded the maximum number of concurrent requests for a user

{
  "Error":
  {
    "HttpStatusCode":429,
    "UserMessage":"You may only have XX concurrent requests open.",
    "DeveloperMessage":"User request forbidden due to XX concurrently open requests.",
    "ErrorCode":103,
    "ReferenceId":"7b45dd15-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-4fe5df8e950a"
  }