How can I get increased rate limits?

[Fee0]

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Hi,

I have an idea for a startup that would provide some analytics about current public github events.
Since there are A LOT of events I need the 15.000 rate limit which I only get with GitHub Enterprise it seems.
Can I get Enterprise GitHub as a private person? Do I need to have a company first?
Are there other ways to increase my rate limits?

Thank you!

[joyalgeorgekj]

Here’s what you need to know about GitHub Enterprise and API rate limits for analytics projects:

1. Can a Private Person Purchase GitHub Enterprise?

• GitHub Enterprise is designed primarily for organizations and businesses, not individuals. While pricing and plans can be viewed on the GitHub Pricing page, official documentation emphasizes "enterprise accounts" and organization use. There’s no standard way for an individual to buy GitHub Enterprise; it’s targeted at organizations with features tailored for business needs, such as SAML SSO and advanced management controls. See all plan types, including GitHub Enterprise, on the GitHub’s plans page.

2. Do I Need a Company?

• Typically, yes. You would usually need to represent a company/organization to purchase GitHub Enterprise. If you wish to proceed as an individual, you may try to contact GitHub Sales, but it’s not the primary intended audience.

3. Are There Other Ways to Increase API Rate Limits?

• Alternatives for individuals or small teams:
  • Create a GitHub App or OAuth app and authenticate requests. This allows higher rate limits than unauthenticated requests. (See details at Rate limits for GitHub Apps)
  • If your project is open source, engaging with the GitHub community and explaining your analytics usage may sometimes allow for whitelisting or increased limits, but this is case-by-case and rare.
  • For heavy use (e.g., for analytics on all public events), generally only GitHub Enterprise Cloud offers the top rate limits, and is available to organizations.
  • Both GitHub Pro and Team plans offer increased quotas for some features, but do not fundamentally raise the core API rate limit to enterprise levels.

For more information on plan options and possible upgrades, visit GitHub Pricing.

Summary:
You generally need to have an organization to buy GitHub Enterprise and gain the highest rate limits. As an individual, your best option is to use authenticated requests via GitHub Apps or personal access tokens, but this will not match the enterprise-level rate limit. For exhaustive public analytics, you may need to coordinate with GitHub directly, potentially building your project as an organization rather than as a private individual.

You can compare plan features and rate limits at GitHub’s plans and see rate limits for GitHub Apps for technical options.

Note

You can ask copilot to clear doubts like these.
If this gives you the clarification you are looking for please mark it as answer!

[Muhammad-Jawad-0]

You normally can’t get Enterprise-level public-event rate limits as a private individual — Enterprise-level (15,000 req/hr) is tied to GitHub Enterprise Cloud organizations or apps/installs that belong to them. For a public-events analytics project, the usual routes are: (A) use authenticated apps/tokens (up to ~5,000 req/hr) or GitHub App installations on Enterprise orgs (higher limits), (B) use archival datasets like GH Archive / BigQuery instead of polling the API, or (C) contact GitHub Sales/support for a custom arrangement.