We track Billable API Calls as a way to ensure that customers who have very high system usage pay for their fair share of the resources consumed.

We use 95% percentile calculations for your count of billable API calls for customer-friendly billing. This calculation says that 95% of the time, your usage is at or below this amount. The top 5% of the measurements are discarded from the calculations, allowing for bursts of activity without penalty to you.

As defined in our Terms of Service, your count of Billable API Calls is simply the total count of any request sent to the Files.com API servers.

This means that any activity on your site will generate API calls. This includes any activity using the web interface, any of the Files.com apps, FTP/SFTP/DAV protocols, our SDKs, and our integrations with iPaaS.

Features of your site used by external parties, such as share links, inboxes and public hosting, will also generate API calls.

Understanding High API Call Usage

High API usage is often the result of a buggy or inefficient scripted/automated process repeatedly making duplicate or unnecessary requests.

Persistently high API call usage can result from polling, the process of sending the same GET, LIST, or STAT request over and over again to look for changes.

We recommend using Automation Triggers or Webhooks as alternatives to polling.

High API usage can also come from badly designed processes. One common example we see is uploading 1,000 files and listing a folder after each upload, rather than at the end of the upload batch. The Files.com API returns up to 2,500 results per API LIST request, so in a folder with 100,000 files, that would result in 10 API calls per list. That means by running a list after every upload, you generate 41x as much API activity as you would without the unnecessary LIST calls.

Remediating High API Call Usage

Customers using high amounts of API usage are welcome to simply upgrade their plan, but we prefer is that you audit your usage and fix the wasteful process.

We provide detailed Logs to help you understand and diagnose API activity on the account. Make sure to look at SFTP logs, FTP logs, WebDAV logs, Public Share logs, or whatever logs relate to the source of your activity.

Our Customer Support team is also happy to help you identify the source of high API usage. Feel free to give us a call at 1-800-286-8372, ext 2 during USA business hours, or book a Zoom or phone call on our calendar.

Child Sites API Usage

Your child site API usage is taken into account when calculating your overall API usage. Your plan usage is the sum of the 95th percentile for each of your sites, including your Child Sites.

As an example, if your plan includes 2 million API calls per day at the 95th percentile level, that means the 95th percentile number of all your sites, when summed, needs to be below 2 million.