How BrickLogic Uses Marketplace APIs
BrickLogic keeps your inventory, prices, and orders in sync with the marketplaces you sell on (like BrickLink and BrickOwl). It does this by talking to each marketplace's API — the official connection that lets approved software read and update your store on your behalf.
This page explains, in plain terms, what those API calls are used for and how BrickLogic stays within each marketplace's limits. For the specifics of each marketplace, see:
What an "API call" is
Every time BrickLogic checks for a new order, updates a listing, or looks up a price, it makes one API call to that marketplace. Think of it like a phone call to the marketplace: "Any new orders?" or "Set the quantity on this lot to 4." Each question or update is one call.
Marketplaces count these calls and set limits on them, so BrickLogic is careful about how many it makes.
What uses your API calls
BrickLogic makes calls for a few different reasons:
| Activity | What it does | Roughly how often |
|---|---|---|
| Order syncing | Checks for new orders and pushes status/tracking updates back to the marketplace | On a regular schedule (your polling interval) |
| Inventory syncing | Pushes your stock and price changes from BrickLogic to the marketplace | When you change inventory, or on a sync |
| Market price data | Looks up recent sold prices so BrickLogic can guide your pricing | In the background, near the end of each day |
Order syncing is the most time-sensitive — you don't want to oversell — so BrickLogic always gives it priority.
Two kinds of limits
Marketplaces protect their systems with two different kinds of limits. Not every marketplace uses both.
- Rate limit — how fast you may make calls (for example, "no more than 600 per minute"). BrickLogic automatically paces itself to stay under this, so you never have to think about it.
- Daily quota — how many calls you may make per day total (for example, "5,000 per day"). When a marketplace has a daily quota, BrickLogic budgets it carefully and prioritizes your most important calls.
A rate limit only affects speed — if BrickLogic ever bumps into it, things just go a little slower. A daily quota is a hard ceiling for the day, so BrickLogic actively manages it to make sure order syncing never runs out of room.
Which marketplace has which:
| Marketplace | Rate limit | Daily quota |
|---|---|---|
| BrickLink | Yes | Yes — 5,000 calls/day |
| BrickOwl | Yes | No daily quota |
How BrickLogic prioritizes calls (when there's a daily quota)
For marketplaces with a daily quota, BrickLogic sorts every call into a priority level. As you get closer to the daily limit, lower-priority work pauses first so that critical work always has room:
- Order syncing — highest priority, always protected
- Inventory updates
- Market price refreshes — lowest priority, runs only when there's spare room
This means that even on a busy day, checking for and processing orders comes first. Background price refreshes step aside as needed.
Where to see your usage
- Settings → External Connections shows how many calls each marketplace connection has made today.
- The Polling & Quota panel on a channel shows today's usage and (for marketplaces with a daily quota) how much is left.
Why your usage might look high
If you check your BrickLink usage and it looks surprisingly high even though you haven't done much, that's usually the background market-price refresh doing its job — BrickLogic uses spare daily quota to keep your pricing data current. This is normal and intentional. See the BrickLink page for the full explanation.