Credits & Rate Limits | Sarvam API Docs

Credits

Sarvam offers ₹100 worth of free credits for every user on signup. These credits can be used across any of our APIs — explore, prototype, and build without upfront cost.

Credits are universal and never expire. Once exhausted, add more credits or upgrade your plan from the Sarvam Dashboard.

How Rate Limits Work

Rate limits restrict the number of API requests your account can make within a given time window. Key points:

Per-account enforcement — limits apply to your account as a whole, not individual API keys. All keys share the same rate limit pool.
Continuous replenishment — capacity refills steadily over the window period rather than resetting all at once (token bucket model).
Per-API granularity — each API has its own independent rate limits. WebSocket, Vision, and LLM APIs have different limits from standard REST APIs — check your specific API below.

Per-API Rate Limits by Plan

Rate limits vary significantly by API type and plan. Review the limits for each API below before building your integration.

Speech to Text

Real-time REST (`stt-rt`)

	Starter	Pro	Business
Rate Limit	60 req/min	100 req/min	4,000 req/min

WebSocket Streaming (`stt-ws`)

	Starter	Pro	Business
Rate Limit	20 concurrent	100 concurrent	100 concurrent

Batch (`stt-batch`)

	Starter	Pro	Business
Rate Limit	20 req/min	100 req/min	500 req/min

For batch endpoints, avoid tight polling loops. Poll no faster than your plan’s rate limit allows, for example every 3 seconds on Starter’s 20 req/min.

The SDK’s wait_until_complete() uses safe defaults out of the box:

Batch STT / Speech-to-Text-Translate: 5-second poll interval. See Polling Defaults.
Document Digitization: 2-second poll interval. See Polling Defaults.

If you poll manually instead of using the SDK helper, match or exceed these intervals.

Text to Speech

Real-time REST (`tts-rt`)

	Starter	Pro	Business
Rate Limit	60 req/min	200 req/min	1,000 req/min

For bulbul:v3 model specifically, Starter rate limit is 30 req/min. Pro and Business limits are the same as the default above.

WebSocket Streaming (`tts-ws`)

	Starter	Pro	Business
Rate Limit	60 concurrent	200 concurrent	1,000 concurrent

For bulbul:v3 model specifically, Starter rate limit is 30 concurrent. Pro and Business limits are the same as the default above.

Translation & Text Services

Translate (`ms-ts`)

	Starter	Pro	Business
Rate Limit	60 req/min	200 req/min	1,000 req/min

Chat Completion (LLM)

Default models (`ms-llm`)

	Starter	Pro	Business
Rate Limit	60 req/min	200 req/min	1,000 req/min

Sarvam-30B & Sarvam-105B models

These large models have lower limits due to their compute requirements.

	Starter	Pro	Business
Rate Limit	40 req/min	60 req/min	120 req/min

Applies to: sarvam-30b, sarvam-105b

Vision

Vision API limits are uniform across all plans (Starter, Pro, and Business). Upgrading your plan does not increase Vision limits.

Document Intelligence (`vis-doc-dig`)

	Starter	Pro	Business
Rate Limit	10 req/min	10 req/min	10 req/min

Vision Real-time (`vis-rt`)

	Starter	Pro	Business
Rate Limit	30 req/min	30 req/min	30 req/min

Exceeding Your Limits

REST rate limits (429 / 503)

When your account exceeds a rate limit, the API returns a 429 Too Many Requests response:

1 {
2   "error": {
3     "message": "Rate limit exceeded",
4     "code": "rate_limit_exceeded_error"
5   }
6 }

A 503 Service Unavailable can also occur under high backend load. Retry it the same way you would a 429, using a fixed exponential backoff. See Retry with exponential backoff for a reference implementation.

WebSocket connection limits (stt-ws / tts-ws)

The limiter reacts to how fast new connections are opened, not how many are held open at once:

Connections opened in a fast burst can be rejected well below the concurrent ceilings listed above.
The same number of connections opened gradually (for example, 300ms apart) and held open simultaneously can succeed past those ceilings.

A rejected connection is closed, not queued. The close code is 1003, with this reason text:

Rate limit exceeded. Visit the API Dashboard to review and manage your subscription.

This differs from the 4xxx range described elsewhere on this site for application-specific closures.

The burst threshold is not a fixed number and can vary between runs at the same burst size. Space out new connections rather than relying on a specific count.

Plan Overview

	Starter	Pro	Business	Enterprise
Price	Pay as you go	₹10,000	₹50,000	Custom
Bonus Credits	—	₹100	₹7,500	Custom
Support	Community	Email	Email	Dedicated
Best For	Prototyping & testing	Startups & POCs	Production workloads	Scale deployments

Rate limits are measured per account, not per API key. All keys under an account share the same limit pool. Your current limits are visible on the Dashboard → Rate Limits page.

Upgrading Your Limits

Check your current limits

Visit the Dashboard → Rate Limits to see your exact per-API limits.

Upgrade your plan

Purchase a higher plan directly from the dashboard. Your rate limits increase immediately after upgrade — no downtime.

Need custom limits?

For limits beyond Business tier, contact our team for an Enterprise arrangement.

Upgrade Plan

View plans and upgrade directly from the dashboard. Rate limits update instantly.

Enterprise & Custom Limits

Need higher rate limits, dedicated infrastructure, or custom SLAs? Talk to our team.

Managing Your Credits

If your credits are exhausted, API requests will return errors. You can add credits at any time — adding credits does not change your plan or rate limits.

Add Credits — Top up from the Billing page at any time. Credits never expire.
Upgrade Your Plan — Higher plans include bonus credits and increased rate limits.
Enterprise — For volume discounts and custom billing arrangements, email developer@sarvam.ai.