Authentication

How to authenticate with the Lotsofsounds API — API keys, plans, and rate limits

API Keys

All endpoints (except /api/v1/sounds/sample) require an API key. Pass it via the x-api-key header:

curl https://api.lotsofsounds.com/api/v1/sounds \
  -H "x-api-key: los_your_api_key_here"

const res = await fetch("https://api.lotsofsounds.com/api/v1/sounds", {
  headers: { "x-api-key": "los_your_api_key_here" },
});

import requests

res = requests.get(
    "https://api.lotsofsounds.com/api/v1/sounds",
    headers={"x-api-key": "los_your_api_key_here"},
)

API keys are prefixed with los_ and can be created from the API Keys dashboard.

Keys are shown only once

Copy your API key immediately after creating it. You won't be able to see the full key again — only the los_ prefix is stored.

API access requires a paid plan:

Free accounts can browse and preview sounds in the dashboard but cannot access the API.

Every authenticated response includes rate limit headers:

Header	Description
`X-RateLimit-Limit`	Your daily request quota
`X-RateLimit-Remaining`	Requests remaining today
`X-RateLimit-Reset`	Unix timestamp when the limit resets (midnight UTC)

When you exceed your rate limit, the API returns a 429 status code:

429 Response

{
  "error": "Rate limit exceeded",
  "limit": 2500,
  "reset": 1711411200
}

Limits reset daily at midnight UTC. Monitor your usage from the usage dashboard or by checking response headers.

Wrong header name

Use x-api-key, not Authorization: Bearer. The API will return 401 if you use the wrong header.