> You are reading the Docusign Developer Documentation. For clean Markdown of any page, append .md to the page URL.
>
> Documentation indexes by section:
> - APIs and SDKs: https://docusign.docs.buildwithfern.com/docs/llms.txt
> - Platform 101: https://docusign.docs.buildwithfern.com/platform/llms.txt
> - Extension Apps: https://docusign.docs.buildwithfern.com/extension-apps/llms.txt
> - Docusign CLI: https://docusign.docs.buildwithfern.com/docusign-cli/llms.txt
>
> Authentication (OAuth, JWT Grant, M2M): https://docusign.docs.buildwithfern.com/platform/auth
> Webhooks and Connect: https://docusign.docs.buildwithfern.com/platform/webhooks
>
> OpenAPI specifications: https://docusign.docs.buildwithfern.com/openapi.json
> MCP server: https://docusign.docs.buildwithfern.com/_mcp/server

# Rules and resource limits

> Explore the rules and resource limits of the Docusign Admin API.

To maintain reliability and stability within our demo and production environments, Docusign operates with certain API call efficiency guidelines. To ensure effective load balancing, we continually monitor the API calls to our backend systems, and we will contact developers that are putting unnecessary burden on the system.

By default, the total number of calls per hour from all apps associated with your account may not exceed 3,000.

Hourly API usage is tracked from the start of one hour to the start of the next hour (for example, 1:00 PM–2:00 PM).

**Note:** A shorter, 30-second burst limit is also implemented for all Admin API calls. This limit can prevent you from making large numbers of calls in very short periods of time. If you exceed the API rate limit, you will receive an error in the API response: "The maximum number of hourly API invocations has been exceeded."

## Next steps

* Learn about the [Resource limits for the Docusign platform](/platform/resource-limits) or the API rules and resource limits for the  [eSignature REST API](/docs/esign-rest-api/esign101/rules-and-limits).
* See [How-to guides](/docs/admin-api/how-to) that provide walkthroughs for common Admin API scenarios.