Rate limit on Create Meeting API

Description
We are trying to create an integration between our Learning Management System (Saba Cloud) and Zoom Meetings and Webinars. The Create Meeting API mentions a limit of 100 APIs per user. However, we use a central integration user to create all Zoom meetings. This would mean we can only create 100 meetings in a day, which is too little for the size of customers we are targeting.

  1. What are our customers’ options in this regard for getting a higher limit? We can see anywhere upto 10,000 meetings on a peak day.
  2. Webinars do not mention such a rate limit. Does this mean we can create any number of Webinars, keeping in mind the other concurrency rate limits?

Error
N/A

Which App Type (OAuth / Chatbot / JWT / Webhook)?
Knowing the endpoint/s can help us to identify your issue faster. Please link the ones you need help/have a question with.

Which Endpoint/s?
post /users/{userId}/meetings
post /users/{userId}/webinars

How To Reproduce (If applicable)
N/A

Screenshots (If applicable)
N/A

Additional context

Hey @luchlani,

I would suggest creating a new user so you can use both users to create the meeting and increase your limits.

Or I would suggest using the OAuth flow, allowing each user using your application to have the meeting created for them.

Thanks,
Tommy

Hi Tommy,

Thanks for the response.

It is not reasonable for us to create another user because the customer could have 1000s of meetings a day and this would mean having 20, 30 or 40 users for calling APIs. Our design uses a central integration user (like a Service Account) to call all APIs, including creating a meeting. Is there something our customers can do to increase this 100 limit to say a 1000 or 5000? Customers may often batch upload a CSV of say 5000 pre-planned training meetings.

The OAuth flow where meeting is created for each user leads to multiple issues in our use case

  • We create meetings first and then assign “instructors”. We will need to hold off on creating meetings, unless an instructor is assigned.
  • Instructors can change. Thus a meeting maybe created under user1, but later user2 may be the instructor instead of user1 with everything else being the same. We would be forced to cancel the original meeting and create a new one.

Can you suggest a suitable solution for us? Thanks for your understanding.

Regards,
Laxman Uchlani

Hey @luchlani,

I am not sure if this is something we recommend or support.

To address these concerns, I suggest making each instructor the host. You can do this through OAuth, or JWT, creating the meetings for the instructors. If the instructors change, then utilize the alternative host option which can be done on the Zoom Web Portal or API.

Screen Shot 2020-03-06 at 1.06.35 PM

Thanks,
Tommy

Thanks Tommy.
If we made the new instructor an alternate host, how will we remove the old instructor (host)? Can we prevent the old instructor from starting/managing the meeting? And is there a way to notify the old instructor about it?

Also, does this rate limit apply to a webinar?

Regards,
Laxman Uchlani

Hey @luchlani,

To confirm, when you say “rate limits” do you mean our developer rate limits: https://marketplace.zoom.us/docs/api-reference/rate-limits ?

Unfortunately you can’t remove the old instructor (host), but the alternative host will be able to start and control the meeting.

Perhaps in this scenario you should delete the scheduled meeting, and create a new one for the new instructor.

Thanks,
Tommy

Hi Tommy,

Thanks for your responses.

By rate limits, I am referring to the limit of 100 Create Meeting requests mentioned here. https://marketplace.zoom.us/docs/api-reference/zoom-api/meetings/meetingcreate. Is there any way to up these? Also is there any such restriction on webinars?

We are not concerned about the rate limits mentioned here - https://marketplace.zoom.us/docs/guides/announcements#rate-limit-changes

Regards.
Laxman Uchlani

Hey @luchlani,

Thanks for confirming. There is no way to up the 100 meetings a day rate limit.

We encourage to use the proper flow for the instructor / student model for meetings and webinars.

Each instructor would be the host of the Zoom meeting, and you can automate creating their meetings via a User Level or Account Level OAuth app.

Thanks,
Tommy

Thanks Tommy. Appreciate the prompt feedback.

1 Like

Happy to help! :slight_smile:

Let us know if you have additional questions.

Thanks,
Tommy

What my team has found is that a Zoom host seems to only have the ability to host one meeting at a time, and alternative hosts seem to have no effect on this limitation. So even if you didn’t have the 100 meeting rate limit, how would you deal with the problem that all of the meetings would be hosted by the same user, and thus no two meetings started by the host could be in progress simultaneously?

Hey @onemancat,

Correct, a host can only host one Zoom meeting at a time.

Thanks,
Tommy

Hi there,

Our application has a usecase where we randomly pair up about 1000+ users for short discussions.

Just to confirm, https://marketplace.zoom.us/docs/api-reference/zoom-api/meetings/meetingcreate now has an upperbound of 20 requests/second for a pro account, so (20x60x60x24) number of create meetings will be accessible per day, right? (As opposed to a daily rate limit of 100 requests per day).

Hey @manish.mks.999,

The rate limit for creating meetings for a Pro account is 20 requests per second, up to 100 requests in a 24 hour period for a single user.

If you need to create more meetings then 100 per day, you will have to create another user on your account and create meetings for both users.

Thanks,
Tommy

Hi,

Is it correct that the rate limit is per user and not per account?

If I create multiple admin users in a single account, can each admin user create 100 meetings per day using the create a meeting API?

I have to create 1500 meetings within a few days.
If I create 5 users, can I create 1500 meetings in 3 days?

If that method is not possible, is there any other way to do it?

Hey @aoyagi,

Correct. Your math adds up! :slight_smile:

Thanks,
Tommy

I have a use case in which we have one user in the account and we’re sending weekly matches to our user base, which are people outside of the Zoom account. I saw that you suggested to create new users, but on any given week, we don’t know who’s going to sign up or not, so how I do know how many users to create? It seems like a very manual process, which does not make sense to me.

Is there some sort of way to create like “temporary users” or something like that? We literally just need to create the meetings in the API, but we don’t really need “users” per se…

It looks like the ISV plan might be the one for us, but we are a startup so I don’t know if we’ll be able to afford it. Can you tell me what the cost structure is, and if we were to go with that, then how long would it take to finalize the arrangement? We’re launching a product on Monday, so I want to make sure this happens in time.

Hey @bloom-engineering,

Yes, with ISV and custCreate, you can dynamically create users and then delete / recycle them if needed.

Here is the ISV pricing: https://sites.google.com/zoom.us/isv/partners

It sounds like the best option would be to use OAuth to have users use their own Zoom accounts instead of you creating and managing the users on your end.

Thanks,
Tommy