What should I do if I reach my render limit?

Your render usage consists of two main components: automatic recaching and on-demand renders.

To reduce the automatic recaching, you need to minimize the number of cached pages. Here’s how to do that:

• Fix Soft 404 Pages: Check for any soft 404 pages and correct them by using the 404 Prerender meta tag. 
  • Here's a guide on how to check for soft 404 pages and how to fix them.  
• Ignore Unnecessary Parameters: Exclude unnecessary URL parameters from being cached.
  • A guide on how to ignore query parameters. 
• Exclude Irrelevant URLs: Identify and exclude any URLs or paths that are not essential for SEO.
  • How to ignore URLS and respond with 404s.

The steps mentioned above will also affect on-demand renders.

However, it’s important to note that non-200 status renders may still occur. There is generally no straightforward way to eliminate these renders, as their implementation can be complex and, in some cases, may not be avoidable.

But your render usage also depends on your render limit according to your plan. Free plan users are restricted to 1,000 renders per month. Once this limit is reached, uncached pages will not be indexable. When bots try to access these uncached pages after reaching the limit, they will receive a 429 status code from Prerender, meaning the pages will not be rendered. If your domain does not have any soft-404 issues and you only cache functional URL parameters, the limits of the Free plan are likely insufficient for your site. Consider subscribing to one of our paid plans instead.

For paid plan users, the rendering limit depends on the specific plan chosen. However, even after reaching their rendering limit, bots can still index additional pages as Prerender will continue to render new pages. 

Depending on your plan, there is an additional fee for every additional thousand renders, ensuring that your site's SEO remains unaffected. If the above-mentioned steps are implemented, but the rendering limit is still exceeded, then it might be worth considering upgrading to a plan with more renders included to meet your site's needs.