Question 1

Is Zapi really free?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The Free tier is 600 requests a month at 100 requests a minute, across every endpoint in the catalogue, with no credit card. Nothing about it expires.

Question 2

What happens when I hit the quota?

Accepted Answer

Requests return 429 with the limit, what you have used, and which window you tripped — nothing is queued, and nothing is charged. The monthly quota resets on the 1st (UTC). There is no rollover: unused requests do not carry into the next month.

Question 3

Do failed requests use up my quota?

Accepted Answer

A 5xx does not. If a source breaks on our side, the request is excluded from your monthly count. A 4xx does count — a wrong parameter is still a request we answered. Per-minute throttling counts everything, so a retry loop is still throttled.

Question 4

Which tier do I need?

Accepted Answer

Start on Free. Every response carries the remaining quota in its headers, and the dashboard reads the same number enforcement uses, so you will see the ceiling coming rather than discovering it.

Question 5

How is Zapi different from RapidAPI or Apify?

Accepted Answer

Zapi focuses on a consistent REST contract — one API key, one response format, one error pattern for every source. No need to learn per-provider quirks like on traditional marketplaces, and no need to set up scraping workflows like on Apify.

Question 6

What about the legality of accessing public data?

Accepted Answer

Zapi only accesses data that is publicly available without a login. Responsibility for how it is ultimately used stays with the developer — make sure your use case complies with the original source's ToS and the regulations in your operating region.

Question 7

Is there an official SDK?

Accepted Answer

One: zpi-sdk, for TypeScript and JavaScript. It carries a typed error hierarchy, retries only what is safe to retry, submits bulk jobs, and verifies webhook signatures. Everything else is plain REST — cURL or any HTTP client works.

Question 8

Can I request a source that isn’t in the catalogue yet?

Accepted Answer

Yes, through the community Discord, on any tier.

Name	Type	In	Description
url	string	query	YouTube media URL (video or post). Query params are fine. Required.
quality	enum	query	Max video quality — `max` = best available. Ignored when audioOnly=true. One of 144, 240, 360, 480, 720, 1080, max.
audioOnly	enum	query	Set `true` to fetch audio only. Default `false` (video). One of true, false.
audioFormat	enum	query	Audio container when audioOnly=true. Default mp3. One of mp3, opus, ogg, wav.

YouTube Downloader

Download

Parameters

Example response

Errors

Parameters

Example response

Errors

Code