Understanding rate limits

Synacl runs on shared infrastructure, so each plan has limits that keep one tenant from starving everyone else. There are three gates:

1. Per-device publish interval

The minimum gap between two messages from one device. If your plan's interval is 1000 ms (1 Hz), a device that publishes twice in the same second has the second message dropped.

2. Aggregate tenant rate

A cap on messages per second across all your devices combined. If your aggregate limit is 30 msg/s and 40 devices all publish in the same second, ~10 messages are dropped.

3. Per-device hourly cap (if set)

Some plans cap total messages per device per hour.

Worked example

On a plan with 1 Hz/device and 30 msg/s aggregate:

• 20 devices each publishing once per second = 20 msg/s → all delivered ✅
• 1 device publishing at 10 Hz = 9 of every 10 messages dropped ❌ (exceeds 1 Hz)
• 50 devices each at 1 Hz = 50 msg/s → ~20 msg/s dropped ❌ (exceeds aggregate)

Your Quota & limits page shows your plan's exact numbers and live usage.

What happens when you exceed them

Dropped messages are counted as violations:

• 1–5 violations → warning event
• 6–20 → error event + email
• 21+ → the device is automatically suspended (1h, then 6h, then 24h on repeat)

Suspensions lift automatically. Fix the publish rate, or upgrade your plan, to avoid them. See sizing your publish rate.