429 Too Many Requests

Mixpanel does not return a Retry-After header. Compute your own backoff interval using the strategy below.

Endpoint	Limit
`/import`	2GB of uncompressed JSON per minute, or roughly 30k events per second, measured on a rolling one-minute basis
`/track`	The same limits as `/import`

Endpoint

Limit

/import

2GB of uncompressed JSON per minute, or roughly 30k events per second, measured on a rolling one-minute basis

/track

The same limits as /import

How to Fix It

Retry With Exponential Backoff and Jitter

Start with a 2-second backoff, double it up to a maximum of 60 seconds, and add 1–5 seconds of jitter so that concurrent clients do not retry in lockstep.

import random
import time

import requests

MAX_ATTEMPTS = 8


def send_batch(url, auth, events):
    for attempt in range(MAX_ATTEMPTS):
        response = requests.post(
            url, auth=auth, params={"strict": 1}, json=events, timeout=30
        )

        # 502 and 503 are transient too, so back off the same way.
        if response.status_code not in (429, 502, 503):
            return response

        # Start at 2s, double to a 60s ceiling, then add jitter.
        wait_time = min(2 ** (attempt + 1), 60) + random.uniform(1, 5)
        time.sleep(wait_time)

    raise RuntimeError(f"giving up after {MAX_ATTEMPTS} attempts")

Do not retry a 400. Validation errors fail consistently and still count toward your rate limit. See 400 Bad Request.

Run Backfills at Full Speed Until Throttled

Rather than pacing requests with a fixed sleep, send as fast as you can with concurrent clients and let 429s tell you when to slow down. Mixpanel sees the best results with 10–20 concurrent clients sending 2,000 events per batch.

A fixed delay between requests almost always underuses the available throughput and makes a large backfill take far longer than it needs to.

Ask for a Higher Limit

If you are an Enterprise customer and a one-time backfill needs more headroom, contact your CSM with your project_id and the use case.

FAQs

Error Troubleshooting

429 Too Many Requests

What the Response Looks Like

The Rate Limit

How to Fix It

Retry With Exponential Backoff and Jitter

Run Backfills at Full Speed Until Throttled

Ask for a Higher Limit

​What the Response Looks Like

​The Rate Limit

​How to Fix It

​Retry With Exponential Backoff and Jitter

​Run Backfills at Full Speed Until Throttled

​Ask for a Higher Limit

​Related

What the Response Looks Like

The Rate Limit

How to Fix It

Retry With Exponential Backoff and Jitter

Run Backfills at Full Speed Until Throttled

Ask for a Higher Limit

Related