Google Ads API: QPS rate limit ball park figure?

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Mat

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Aug 26, 2021, 9:52:22 AM8/26/21
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Hi,

I'm currently implementing a rate limiter on our side to avoid breaking the QPS rate limits of several Google APIs. While there are precise rate limits for some of your APIs (like max 100 requests in 100 seconds), I can't find not even vague figures for the Google Ads API rate limits.

So my question is: can you give us at least some ball park figures where those rate limits (QPS) per client customer ID (CID) and developer token might be during rush hours? Is it more like 1/s, 10/s or even 100/s?

Or shall we just try and error? Or hit the API full speed until 429 and only back off then?

To my fellow developers: do you have any insights in this matter?

Regards
Mat

Google Ads API Forum Advisor

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Aug 31, 2021, 5:55:22 AM8/31/21
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Hello Mat,

Thank you for reaching out to us.

As per this guide, there are no exact figures mentioned since the exact limit will vary depending on the overall server load at any given time. Once you hit the limit, you will encounter the RESOURCE_TEMPORARILY_EXHAUSTED error. In addition to that, you can also make use of Throttling and rate limiters to limit the total number of threads in your client application.

In the Google Ads API's perspective, what we have are the limits on API operations which is briefly explained on this guide.

Regards,

Google Logo
Mark Kevin Albios
Google Ads API Team
 


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Mat

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Aug 31, 2021, 10:19:27 AM8/31/21
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Hi Mark,

well, it does not help very much, if you refer to the same links, I provided myself in my question.
Ty anyway.

Regards
Mat

Google Ads API Forum Advisor

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Sep 2, 2021, 1:28:25 PM9/2/21
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Hi Mat,

As the rate limit can vary, the documentation does not have any estimate, nor can our team provide an estimate for a specific date/time. However, if you can specify precisely what you would like to see in the documentation, or what changes you would like to see in error messaging, we can submit a feature request on your behalf.

Regards,
Matt
Google Ads API Team

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Matt
Google Ads API Team
 


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Mat

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Sep 3, 2021, 4:59:56 AM9/3/21
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Hi Matt,

when we develop a tool, we should be able to estimate to what point we can scale. Even if it runs smoothly now, we don't know if it will still work with double or triple the number of accounts, because we don't get any order of magnitude from Google regarding the possible QPS rate limits.

What we would like to see is a clear announcement, like per 1,000 Google Ads cost/month (per account or developer token) 1 QPS is guaranteed. At least 98% of the time or so. 

And we would wish that in the Google Cloud Platform in the traffic graph then additionally a red line would be drawn in, so that we can see or be notified when we are approaching this line.

You'll find these kind of specifications for other APIs, such as Amazon SES et al. 

Regards
Mat

Google Ads API Forum Advisor

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Sep 7, 2021, 3:32:41 AM9/7/21
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Hello Mat,

Thanks for getting back to us and for the additional details regarding the QPS rate limits.

Allow me to raise a feature request for this; however, this is still subject for review and isn't a guarantee if the request will be available in the API soon. That said, we suggest that you keep an eye to our blog for any updates and future releases.

As for your concern related to the Google Cloud Platform, I'm afraid that this is already out of our team's expertise. You can reach out to the Cloud Console Team via this help link instead.

Regards,

Google Logo
Mark Kevin Albios
Google Ads API Team
 


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Google Ads API Forum Advisor

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Sep 7, 2021, 11:29:46 PM9/7/21
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Hello Mat,

We received an update from the feature request regarding on the QPS rate limits.

As per our team, there are no figures we can give really. The QPS varies based on the overall server environments at each moment. If the user follows the best practices, they would be able to avoid the issue.

Regards,

julian selser

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Feb 2, 2023, 5:04:23 PM2/2/23
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Hi Mat,

Sorry to revive the thread, I was curious on how you implemented your solution since Im on the same boat.

My initial thought was to find the service QPS and implement a global token bucket service rate limiter on our side (just like the one google use and recommends). Unfortunately the QPS was is yet unclear, probably to prevent committing to an SLA (the exact token number should be an integer on one of their databases tho).

Mat

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Feb 3, 2023, 1:35:44 AM2/3/23
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Hi Julian,

since my last post here, our rate limiter for the Google Ads API is running with a maximum of 3 hits per 1 second. This is sufficient for our purposes and since then we haven't encountered any "RESOURCE_TEMPORARILY_EXHAUSTED" or "RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED" errors. However - we never tested what the actual limit might be.

Regards
Mat

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