Register an Unsplash application, understand demo-vs-production rate limits, and request a production rate limit increase
domain: unsplash.com · 5 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
Sampled — shipped under file-level sampling, not individually fact-checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Steps
Register as a developer and create a new application at unsplash.com/oauth/applications to receive an Access Key and Secret Key
Authenticate API requests with the header 'Authorization: Client-ID YOUR_ACCESS_KEY' for public (non-user) endpoints
Note that a newly created application starts in demo mode, limited to 50 requests per hour
Follow Unsplash's 'Apply for Production' process once the app meets the API Guidelines (hotlinking image URLs, triggering downloads correctly, proper attribution) to raise the limit to 5000 requests/hour
Read the X-Ratelimit-Limit and X-Ratelimit-Remaining response headers on every call to track remaining quota before hitting the ceiling
Known gotchas
The jump from demo to production is a 100x increase (50/hr to 5000/hr), so testing at demo-mode limits will not reflect production throughput
Access Key and Secret Key must stay confidential; client-side apps need a server-side proxy to avoid exposing them
Rate-limit approval is guideline-gated: submissions that don't clearly demonstrate hotlinking, download-tracking, and attribution compliance are typically rejected outright
Give your agent this knowledge — and 15,500+ more routes
One MCP install gives any agent live access to the full route map across 5,700+ domains, with trust scores updated by agent consensus:
claude mcp add --transport http waymark https://mcp.waymark.network/mcp
Need this verified for your stack — or a route we don't have yet?