API Calls limit

Data Sources
1

For the second month in a row I am hitting the API call limit in Smartsuite. Currently on the proffesional plan with 50k calls per month.
Finding it hard to debug the reason for the high number, the traffic to my Softr site is nowhere near the size that it should demand that many API calls.
Tried turning off User auto sync for this month, but that does not seem to have been enough.

Does anyone else have similar problems?
Is Softr doing any regular API calls that can cause something like this, for caching purposes or similar?

2

Can you check in with our live support so they can get more info about your app and see what’s happening?

3

@Pobbe is it possible you have some monitoring system that pings your system often ?

Also how does your app usage pattern look like ?

Lastly softr’s own DB will go live next month :smiley: in case you consider we don’t enforce API request number limits

1 Like
4

Did that last month when it happened but only got the suggestion to turn off user auto sync.

5

No, not that I know of. So far I only have Make and Softr connected to Smartsuite, Make is only acting on webhooks at updated records. So it makes me think the problem is with Softr.
Is there any way for you to see logs of requests made to a data source, or is there any other way to debug it?

Using Softr it for a public facing web page with products pages, and internal pages for consultants and clients. But pretty low volume.

6

We have run into the API call limit issue, on a number of occasions, specifically earlier this year (January and February). We never determined why it was happening, as we to are WAY below the threshold that should have hit the limit.

With that being said, one thing I noticed, we hit the limit about 2 weeks ago, when one of my team members changed images on around 200 - 300 Smartsuite line items (200 - 300 records had a single image changed), and it caused the API call limit issue. Again, not sure why, but, it fixed itself within a 12 hour period.

@artur and SOFTR tech support did work through our issues, and were able to resolve them, so I very much appreciate them for that.

With that said, @artur, may I ask what is this DB solution via Softr that you are speaking of?

7

@Lockdown155 @Pobbe good call on images… each image loading adds into SmartSuite API calls… so if you have a page with 10 items on each page load there will be about 12 requests… 1 data api call, 1 - metadata call and 10 image calls…

@Lockdown155 Softr is launching next week closed beta our own Softr databases think of Airtable or SmartSuite but inside Softr…

–Artur

8

With the release of the API calls usage screen in SmartSuite yesterday, I now have visibility of how much I am using and I’m worried I will hit the limits quite quick. We are on the SmartSuite Enterprise plan and have a limit of 500,000 per month but last month I used 104,000 (that’s with only me and a few test users accessing the Softr application as I’m still building it out)
I will definitely hit the limit once others start using the application and I was also looking to build my second application for a client portal.

I’ve looked at the databases option in Softr but it doesn’t have all the features needed yet to make the switch.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to reduce the API calls? (I don’t have much experience with API)

9

Supabase has an unlimited API call plan, maybe you can consider or wait the for Softr database API.

10

I also use Supa base seems the most versatile with the addition of functions and edge functions to sent emails notifications etc

11

Well, the problem is that we are using SmartSuite as our business managment system. So in our case it´s kind of the point of using Softr, to display information we have in SmartSuite. Otherwise I also think Supabase would be a good alternative.

12

I am experiencing the same issue. It seems Softr is polling data from SmartSuite every couple of seconds now that it has the live sync feature. I can have my app published open while making no changes/updates in Softr or SmartSuite and my API usage climbs. Once I close my apps browser tab it stops. My test app with only 5 records can increase my API usage 100+ calls in the matter of minutes doing nothing but having the app open. If I go live with this app using real data and real users I would hit my SmartSuite 500,000 API limit in short order. It is frustrating becuase I have been paying for Softr from almost the begining waiting for the bugs to be worked out and was really excited for the live sync with SmartSuite as it was one of my biggest needs, now I am worried it is not going to work for me. I was under the impression that the Softr/SmartSuite live sync was going to use their SmartSuites webhook API to track when changes are made (similar to Nocolo). Example: When a status is changed within SmartSuite it triggers webhook API to let Softr know of the change and update in Softr (using 1 API Call).

13

Hi Folks,

This is a tough issue to deal with. We have made updates to keep your data in sync with Smartsuite in a more real time way, which offers benefits across the entire integration (faster performance and quicker updates for your apps).

And while we are trying to do our best to reduce the amount of calls we need to make this possible, the reality is, it still requires a lot of API calls to make this happen and Smartsuite has an API limit unlike some of the other data sources that we work with.

At the end of the day, this just might be a limitation of how Softr and Smartsuite can work together, and if API calls continue to be a problem, it might be time to be creative about how you use Smartsuite with Softr.

For example, you can look to transfer your highly used items to a database like Softr Databases, while keeping some of data in smartsuite to better account for the amount of API calls that are needed.

If I’m missing anything, please let me know.

14

This issue has come up for us again as well. We were notified that we have almost hit 500000 API calls for the month of October, by Smartsuite. I am awaiting their reply, to tell me if it is possible for us to determine which of our Smartsuite solutions is requiring the largest number of API calls.

Below is a screenshot of our October usage:

October
October1415Ă—576 33.3 KB

And here is one of September:

September
September1402Ă—541 25.8 KB

I’m not sure what to do at this point, without knowing what is exactly requiring the large number of calls, I do not have the info I need to decide on next steps.

We have been adding a large number of images to one of our Smartsuite solutions, and also were testing automations earlier in the month of October.

But I am quite concerned here, as, we are on the highest plan with Smartsuite (Enterprise), and they want $15 per 1000 calls on anything over 500000 (the limit with Enterprise).

Switching over to SOFTR databases is an option, but I have to be perfectly honest, I am hesitant due to experiences thus far with pricing models that SOFTR has, related to features and usage (see my AI assistant posts).

This sort of thing is HIGHLY frustrating, reaching limits that you would not expect to reach, nor calculate for when choosing these SAAS platforms to build off of. Many of us (myself included) are not extremely technical people, with experience with API calls, and such, but these platforms (like SOFTR and Smartsuite) and geared towards people who may not have as much technical knowledge as would be required by other platforms out there.

We end up building things, and having grand ideas about possible future builds, and such, only to hit roadblocks like this, that end up costing MUCH more than expected, both in time and resources, to resolve (if it can even be resolved, which in this API call limit issue, I am not sure it can be).

15

On a side note, SOFTR, what is up with the error I received when trying to post my previous reply, you are not allowed to post the word”m0n3y” in the community forum?? This error came up when I tried to post my previous reply, I had to edit the bad word to “resources”.

I tried to post a screenshot, but even that was not permitted due to the word being in the screenshot?

Here is a link to the screenshot of the error: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0812/6191/files/error.png?v=1761863206

16

@artur Smartsuite support replied to me today, please see:

SOFTR
SOFTR324Ă—295 17.7 KB

What should I make of this, I am not an API expert by any means, is there the ability to “optimize” the API calls that SOFTR makes?

I understand SOFTR database does not have this API call limitation, but it a huge undertaking for us to make a switch to SOFTR database for this issue alone, like massive undertaking which I would prefer to avoid if at all possible.

1 Like
17

I believe it is possible for Softr to fix this and only trigger SmartSuite requests when necessary to optimize API usage using their webhook API (instead of polling SmartSuite), like Noloco does. We run our business backend on SmartSuite, and it is a great platform for us. Unfortunately, Softr Databases are not an option for us, and we only need Softr for portals to our users.

18

@artur Can you comment on what Nick has mentioned, is it possible to adjust the way SOFTR is making API calls to Smartsuite?