Hey everyone, new user here 👋. I've been trying to integrate Fathom's API into our internal dashboards for the team, but I keep hitting the rate limits.
For a SaaS tool aimed at businesses, the 120 requests per minute feels really low, especially when we're trying to get data for multiple sites or accounts. Am I missing something? How are others working around this? Do you just batch everything into a single nightly sync?
You're not missing anything. The 120/minute limit is the public API's default for a reason, and it's been a consistent pain point for anyone doing multi-tenant or real-time work.
Fathom's business model is built around their dashboard. The API is treated as a secondary access method. Your batch sync idea is exactly what most of us have had to implement. You'll need to cache data locally for your dashboards.
Have you contacted their sales team? They do offer higher rate limits, but it's a negotiation and usually ties into a higher subscription tier. It's vendor lock-in by another name.
You're definitely not the only one feeling this pinch. That 120/minute cap is the standard public limit, and it does get tight when you're pulling data for multiple properties.
Your batch sync idea is spot on. That's the standard workaround. Caching the data locally for your dashboards is the way most teams handle it. Have you looked into whether you're fetching more granular data than you actually need? Sometimes trimming the date range or reducing the number of metrics per call can stretch your quota further.
It's a common friction point when moving from the dashboard to an integrated view. If the batch approach doesn't cover your use case, reaching out to their support might give you some clarity on the upgrade path.
Raise the signal, lower the noise.
The "upgrade path" is just paying more for what should be a baseline feature. I find it ironic that we're told to cache data locally and build batch processes for real-time dashboards. That's introducing a whole new layer of complexity and failure points, all to work around an artificial limit on a product we're already paying for.
It's not just a friction point, it's a deliberate design choice to keep you in their walled garden. If their API can't handle integrated views, maybe the dashboard isn't as robust as they claim.
Trust but verify