The “Rate Limit Exceeded” error isn’t new and has been around for almost all the years Instagram ever existed.
If you face this error, chances are you’re regularly active on Instagram, it can happen that you’re not really active but you’re using third-party apps or services to execute certain actions on Instagram.
After logging in to add some likes or follow new accounts, you ended up receiving this error.
New accounts have also reported receiving this error often and that’s because new accounts have a lot of restrictions. You have to let your account be at least one month old before you start doing massive actions.
Even when your account reaches that time, you can’t execute massive actions at once, you can however spread your actions in a way that you’re not spotted by the Instagram algorithm.
You can’t send like 100 follows at once, or keep on commenting on posts very fast. Instagram doesn’t allow that and they’re doing it to protect their community.
The Rate Limit Exceeded error speaks for itself because you can clearly see that the rate limit was exceeded for the action you’re trying to perform.
It could be that you have exceeded the hourly limit for the action you’re want to send, or there is a program that has access to your account and has exceeded the limit for you without knowing it.
Once you received this error, it’s a sign that you’re blocked from adding the particular action you want to send. The “Rate Limit Exceeded” can also present itself in another form, but generally speaking, it shows that there are too many requests in your Instagram account.
A human user shouldn’t exceed these limits but in most cases, third-party applications send out a lot of requests leading to blocking the account from executing more actions.
In this post, we’ll share the possible causes of this error and also explain how you can fix it in your Instagram account.
Causes Of The Error Rate Limit Exceeded On Instagram
The rate limit for such action has been exceeded
This should be the first thing to blame especially if you’re adding some actions but suddenly, you’re blocked from doing such actions.
For instance, if you’re following accounts frequently or adding likes at a fast rate and you encounter this error, you definitely know that the frequent actions you’re performing were the reason you’re receiving the Rate Limit Exceeded on Instagram.
You have to slow things down if you want to protect your account, you should understand that there are limits for each action on Instagram and it varies from one account to another.
There is no official statement from Instagram showing the number of likes you can add every hour or month, you just have to experiment on what actually works for your account. But based on research by social media experts, they have come up with daily limits that Instagram.
You should also understand that aged accounts have more privileges than new accounts. We’ll talk about the limits you have to abide by so that you can stay safe on Instagram, but will share that in the troubleshoots.
Sending too many requests by an application
If you’re using an app to manage your Instagram account in anyways and you encounter the “Rate Limit Exceeded” error, you should definitely check the activities of these apps and also take a look at the permissions it has on your Instagram account.
These types of Instagram management apps will end up sending requests every few seconds in an attempt to monitor some activities.
Start by temporarily disabling these apps and check for the error, if it’s gone, then you know one of your apps is sending a lot of requests.
If that’s the case you need to adjust your settings or get rid of them. Even if the application isn’t sending any real action, it can be sending a lot of search requests or searching for profiles and it can also be scraping data from Instagram.
Whatever the app is executing, a request is sent and once this request is too much, it will result in the Rate Limit Exceeded error on Instagram.
You’re using too many Hashtags
If you add bulky hashtags, you can end up with this error when you try to publish the post or it could be that you’re using the same hashtags over and over again.
You need to use the right hashtags and use not more than five, don’t repeat the same hashtags for every post that you make on Instagram. Find different hashtags within your niche and use them randomly across your posts.
Using one account for multiple streams
This is also another major cause of the Rate Limit Exceeded error on Instagram. Once an account should only be used for one stream.
Third-party applications can be the cause here since they can end up sending one account for multiple streams. Another scenario is that you’re using the same account on multiple apps that end up sending multiple streams if they’re working at once.
It could also be that you’re using a large number of streams on Instagram. You need to terminate some of the apps you believe are sending requests to your account, let only one account run and you might take care of the problem if it’s caused by multiple stream issues.
The Ip address limit exceeded
If the Ip address you’re using has been used on another account that reached the maximum daily limit for request, you might end up with this error and that’s because Instagram has already saved the IP address.
They will block it so that it can’t be used to perform any other action until the expiry date is reached. If that’s the case you might try using another Ip address for accessing your account, if the app you’re using also uses the same Ip address to send the requests, you might end up with this error.
These are the possible causes of the Instagram rate limit exceeded error, let us now share how you can get rid of this error fast.