SheetLatch / Guides

Google Sheets API rate limits, and how caching avoids 429s

Reading a sheet on every page view works until a few people visit at once.

The numbers

Google lists read quotas of 300 requests per minute per project and 60 per minute per user. Beyond the quota the API returns 429. Google's page also says charges for requests beyond quota are planned. Read the current text before you plan around either figure.

Why a cache fixes it

With a 60 second cache, a sheet costs one upstream read per minute, whether 5 or 5,000 people visit. SheetLatch does this for you, caps total calls to Google with a global limiter, and serves the last copy when Google pushes back.

Doing it yourself

Store the parsed rows in memory or a key-value store with a timestamp, and refetch only when the timestamp is older than your window. Add a lock so many requests do not refetch at once.

Sources

Google Sheets API usage limits
Checked Nov 14, 2026.

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