Rate Limits

IONOS CLOUD Object Storage is a shared platform. Rate limits on specific operations prevent heavy usage by one contract from affecting other users. If your requests exceed the limit, the API returns a 429 Too Many Requests response with a Retry-After header.

Impacted operations

Rate limiting applies to the following operations on Contract-owned buckets:

• List Objects
• Delete Objects

Hitting rate limits

Resource-heavy use of the List Objects or Delete Objects operations on Contract-owned buckets triggers the rate limit, for example through frequent or automated repeated requests against a bucket.

Important: IONOS CLOUD enforces rate limits per contract, not per user or endpoint. All activity under the same contract counts toward the rate limit.

If a request is rate limited, the API returns a 429 response with a Retry-After header estimating how long to wait before retrying.

Mitigation strategies and best practices

If your contract hits the rate limit, consider the following:

1. Add more time between requests. This is the primary mitigation: spacing out consecutive List Objects or Delete Objects calls to the same bucket keeps your request rate within the allowed budget.
2. Avoid unnecessary automated polling. Review any scripts or integrations that call List Objects or Delete Objects automatically on a fixed, frequent schedule, and increase the interval between calls where possible.
3. Batch or paginate deliberately. Where your workflow allows it, retrieve or delete results in fewer, well-spaced calls rather than many rapid successive ones.
4. Respect the Retry-After header. If you receive a 429 response, wait at least the estimated duration before retrying, rather than retrying immediately.