RPD Rate Limit Not Reset Instantly, Appears to Increase Gradually

[Airya]

Hello everyone,

I’ve noticed that the request per day (RPD) rate limit for the model gpt-4o-mini-2024-07-18 does not reset to the full 10,000 requests at the start of each new day. Instead, it seems to increase gradually, at a rate of about 3 requests per second.

For example, I queried the rate limit information several times today (October 25, 2024), expecting it to reset immediately to 10,000 requests, but observed a gradual increase instead:

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Timestamp: 2024-10-25 10:08:21
Remaining Requests per Day (RPD Remaining): 4167

Timestamp: 2024-10-25 10:08:47
Remaining Requests per Day (RPD Remaining): 4169

Timestamp: 2024-10-25 10:09:17
Remaining Requests per Day (RPD Remaining): 4172

Timestamp: 2024-10-25 10:09:56
Remaining Requests per Day (RPD Remaining): 4175

Timestamp: 2024-10-25 10:15:31
Remaining Requests per Day (RPD Remaining): 4213

This suggests that the RPD values aren’t fully reset at the start of the day but instead increase continuously. It would be helpful to know if this is an intended feature or a potential issue with the daily rate limit reset.

Has anyone else observed this behavior, or could the OpenAI team provide clarification?

Thanks so much!

[lane]

It sounds like a rolling rate limit (also called a sliding window rate limit) which works differently from a fixed daily reset.

[Airya]

since there were no older requests that could affect the current limit, this indicates unusual behavior or possibly a special type of rate limiting that is not fully documented. Therefore, it could be a bug where the daily reset mechanism is not working correctly. Unless the system is not only limiting based on actual usage, but has possibly implemented some kind of “proactive” limiting behavior. This could mean that the limit per day is continuously increased at smaller intervals, regardless of actual usage.

[_j]

If you empty the tank faster than it refills, eventually you hit the limit.

(the best of about 10 image attempts…)

7 requests per minute at 10000 RPD…