How to Manage the ‘Sorry, you have made too many requests’ Message

Reading time: 3 minutes | Difficulty: Intermediate

Overview

WP Simple Pay automatically limits the number of consecutive requests a single IP address can make. When a visitor reaches this limit, they see the error message Sorry, you have made too many requests. Please try again later.

Standard use of WP Simple Pay very rarely reaches these limits. As a site administrator, you are more likely to see the message while testing your payment forms.

Prerequisites

• Access to your site’s files (to clear the rate limit log)
• A way to add custom code, such as the WPCode plugin, if you want to change the limits

Payment Request Limit

Payment requests (creating a payment, calculating tax, and applying coupons) are limited in 1.5 hour timeframes. Once a visitor reaches the limit, they must wait 1.5 hours before the request will go through.

Clear the Rate Limit Log

To clear every IP address tracked for payment requests, delete the .log file located at /wp-content/uploads/abc-123-wpsp-rate-limiting.log.

The filename contains a unique hash in place of abc-123.

Change the Number of Allowed Requests

To change this limit, add the following custom code snippet to your website: “custom-rate-limit.php”.

Payment Form Loading Limit

Since WP Simple Pay 4.17.5, each payment form loads its data from your site when the page opens. These requests have their own, separate limit: 100 requests per visitor per hour. When a visitor reaches it, the form shows This payment form could not be loaded. Please refresh the page and try again. until the hour is up.

This limit only applies when your site uses a persistent object cache (such as Redis or Memcached), which is where the requests are counted. On sites without one, form loading isn’t limited. Logged-in administrators are never limited, so you can test freely.

This limit is not stored in the rate limit log file, so deleting the log does not reset it. Developers can change it with the simpay_form_data_rate_limit_max_count and simpay_form_data_rate_limit_window filters.

What’s Next?

• How to Resolve Issues Caused by Cache and Optimization Plugins – Troubleshoot forms that don’t load
• How to Add Custom Code – Add snippets that change plugin behavior