Can anyone provide empirical insight into how much historical data can be accessed in a given day/week/month through the Bloomberg terminal API? Bloomberg offers language about their API data limits but they purposely avoid attaching a specific number to the "daily limit." I want to understand if this platform will be a reasonable source for historical S&P 500 component data to be used in proprietary analysis.

doesn't that depend on the offer you subscribe to?along this line I (Eikon user) once realized that I was restricted in the numbers of prices options I could get real-time.a quick call to the Reuters sales representative and a bill later I had access to more data.

I'm looking at a standard Bloomberg terminal license. Not a server license.

You need to talk to a sales representative. This is agreed upon on a per contract, per company basis. It differs depending on which data feed solutions you subscribe to. There is no price list.

I'm working at a shop with few Bloomberg terminals so we'll have no negotiating leverage. What can someone in our position expect?

You'll need to discuss with that with the sales representative.Most likely historical constituents will be treated differently based on just getting boolean in-index-on-date vs weights-on-date.If it's only for S&P500, it might well be within your limits depending on frequency, range etc. Also they might increase the limit temporary without charging an extra fee if it's not much outside your range, or charge a small extra fee to cover index provider pass through fees.Too many variables to give any kind of meaningful locked down answer.Talk to the rep, get the limits from them, check for any extra charges and compare to buying the data from other providers(S&P themselves would most likely be cheapest, but generally BBG and others just charge pass through rates for this kind of stuff).

Just spoke to a sales rep and data specialist. They were very clear - they don't give fixed limits. They can't tell me what my data access ceiling is. That is why I am hoping for someone with some actual experience dealing with the same issue.

its a typical problem. the exact limits are in a specific place on BBG, WAPI<GO>. sent an email to a friend of mine who has bloomberg. if i get it before someone posts, i'll post it myself. each SEC,FLD combination is a "hit". if you are hitting your limits you are doing something bad ie not caching between calls etc. each user has a daily limit. the firm also has a monthly limits. i've done a ton of coding to BBG desktop/server api. and there are a couple of things you can do to say under the radar. Typically at the funds/prop desks that i've worked for bloomberg is the primary data source for the problem set you are describing.Usually bc BBG is already there.However if this is all you are planning to do and you are just getting bloomberg for this there are cheaper alternatives especially given the lock in cost to a single new bloomberg terminal.(2000 for just one or 1695 for 1+ ) per month with a 2 yr contract. you pay half of remaining contract after 60 days notice and 90days before end of contract it automatically renews.Its a vicious contract.

There are two type of limits for Bloomberg the daily about 1mio calls and the monthly about 40k (those are obviously my own estimates)The daily limit is designed to control the bandwidth, therefore does not really matter unless you're HFT

Here is my empirical estimates of Bloomberg download limits via the API:There are 3 types of limits and only the "monthly hits" one is the most restrictive for me:- the "daily total", applies on total hits during a day -> up to 200 000 ok- the "monthly hit", applies on monthly hits (1 hit = 1 (ticker,field) pair) (hits downloaded twice during the month are only counted once) -> blocked around 20 000 previously and now seems to block around 18 000, with a possibility to temporarily extend to 20 000 conditionally to a chat/phone call- the "monthly total", applies on total hits during a whole month -> ok until 500 000To obtain them, I downloaded as much data as possible, and counted every single hit and download until it blocked (then it's possible to call them for temporarily unlocking the limit, until the end of the month when it is automatically reset).