Rate Limits & Plans

CuteMarkets uses a tiered subscription model. Options and stocks are separate subscription products, but both use the same plan ladder, throughput rules, freshness rules, lookback windows, and quote gating.

Plans

Products

Options and stocks are purchased independently. Keep using tier for the Options API subscription and stock_tier for the Stocks API subscription in profile responses.

• A Developer options plan does not unlock stock access unless you also subscribe to Developer or higher for stocks.
• A stock Expert plan unlocks stock quotes, not options quotes.
• API keys are product-scoped. Use an Options API key for options endpoints and a Stocks API key for stock endpoints.

Historical lookback

Each plan enforces a hard limit on how far back in time you can query. Requests that include a date or timestamp parameter that falls outside your plan's window are rejected with a 403 lookback_exceeded error.

The cutoff is calculated relative to the time of the request (rolling window, not a fixed calendar year).

Example 403 Response

curl \
  "https://api.cutemarkets.com/v1/options/contracts/?underlying_ticker=SPY&as_of=2020-01-01" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

{
  "status": "ERROR",
  "request_id": "cm_9c4a1d82e3f04b6a8d2e7f1c5b0a9e3d",
  "error": {
    "code": "lookback_exceeded",
    "message": "Your Free plan allows up to 3 years of historical lookback. Upgrade your plan to access older data."
  }
}

Rate limit headers

Every API response includes headers that tell you your current usage:

Example 429 Response

If you exceed your plan's request limit, you'll receive an ERROR envelope like this:

curl \
  "https://api.cutemarkets.com/v1/options/chain/NFLX/?limit=10" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

{
  "status": "ERROR",
  "request_id": "cm_f38efe47d6b24bf691281cb973a60b61",
  "error": {
    "code": "rate_limit_exceeded",
    "message": "Rate limit exceeded. Upgrade your plan for higher limits."
  }
}