> 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

# API Rules and Resource Limits

> **Warning**
>
> 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](https://www.docusign.com/contact-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:

1. 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.
2. 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**

```json
{

  "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**

```json
{

  "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"

  }
```