What happens when you run out of requests?#

When your request quota hits zero, the News API stops serving paid endpoints and returns an HTTP 402 with error code ER0176 and the message “You have no points on your account.” The one exception: if your key has a pay-as-you-go balance, a paid plan keeps working by charging each request to that balance instead of failing. So “running out” only blocks you when you have no quota and no balance left.

What error do you get when you run out of requests?#

Once your remaining quota (called points in the API) drops below one and you have no pay-as-you-go balance, the next call to any billed endpoint — /v1/news/everything, /v1/news/top-headlines, /v1/news/article and the rest — is rejected before it runs. The response is a 402 with this body:

{
  "status": "not_ok",
  "request_id": "…",
  "errors": [
    {
      "status": 402,
      "code": "ER0176",
      "message": "You have no points on your account.",
      "links": { "about": "https://docs.apitube.io/platform/news-api/http-response-codes" },
      "timestamp": "2026-06-28T12:00:00.000Z"
    }
  ]
}

Because the request is turned away before any work happens, no quota is charged for a 402 — you are not billed for being out of credit. Treat ER0176 as the signal to top up, upgrade, or wait for your reset rather than to keep retrying.

What happens to requests after your quota hits zero?#

Your monthly plan quota is always drawn down first: every successful call deducts one point from your plan allowance. Once that allowance reaches zero, what happens next depends on whether you carry a pay-as-you-go balance:

• Paid plan with a balance — requests do not fail. Each call falls back to your pay-as-you-go balance and is billed at $0.01 per request (one cent), so traffic keeps flowing past your plan limit.
• No balance left — the next call returns 402 ER0176 until your quota resets or you add funds.

A request is only charged when it actually returns at least one article, so an empty search does not draw down your quota. For the full per-endpoint breakdown of what costs what, see what counts as one request.

When does your quota reset?#

Your quota refills automatically, and the cadence depends on your plan:

• Free plan — the allowance is 200 requests per day and resets daily. When you hit the daily cap you get ER0176 until the next day’s reset.
• Paid plans — the allowance resets monthly, on your subscription’s renewal date. The dashboard overview shows the exact reset date so you know when a fresh allowance lands.

You never have to do anything for the reset to happen — it follows your billing cycle. If you need requests before the reset, the two options below get you unblocked immediately.

How to keep making requests after you run out#

You have three ways to recover, depending on how much headroom you need:

1. Add a pay-as-you-go balance. Topping up moves the key onto overflow billing at $0.01 per request. The minimum top-up is $1, which buys 100 requests; once a balance is present, a paid key keeps serving past its plan quota instead of returning ER0176.
2. Upgrade your plan. A higher plan grants a larger monthly allowance, which is the better fix if you consistently exhaust your quota every cycle.
3. Wait for the reset. If the overage is occasional, simply waiting for the daily (free) or monthly (paid) refill restores your full allowance at no extra cost.

Before you run out, you can watch how close you are: every API response includes an x-points-remaining header (and x-balance-remaining for your pay-as-you-go funds), and you can poll the /v1/balance endpoint at any time without spending a request.

How is this different from a rate-limit (429) error?#

A 402 ER0176 means you are out of quota for the period — you have spent your allowance. A 429 is a rate-limit error: you are sending requests too fast, even though you may still have plenty of quota left. They are unrelated walls and need different fixes — a 402 is solved by topping up, upgrading, or waiting for the reset, while a 429 is solved by slowing your request rate. For the rate-limit case, see how to handle rate-limit (429) errors.

Common Questions#

Am I charged for a request that returns 402?#

No. When the API rejects a call with 402 ER0176, the request is turned away before it does any work, so no quota or balance is deducted. You are never billed for being out of credit; only successful, article-returning calls cost anything.

Do test keys ever run out of requests?#

No. Test keys hit the live API but do not consume quota, so they never trigger the ER0176 wall. They are meant for previewing request and response shapes; switch to a live key for billed, production traffic.

I have a balance but still get a 402 — why?#

If you have set a monthly pay-as-you-go spending limit and reached it, overflow billing stops and the API returns 402 ER0177 (“Monthly pay-as-you-go spending limit reached”) instead of ER0176. That cap resets at the start of each calendar month, or you can raise it in the dashboard to resume pay-as-you-go requests right away.

How do I know how many requests I have left?#

Read the x-points-remaining header on any API response, or call /v1/balance, which returns your remaining points without consuming any. See how to check your balance via the API for the exact call.