Your API Says 200 OK. But Where Are the Other 1,900 Records from 2000?

You make an API request.

Get 200 OK.

Everything looks fine. No errors. No warnings.

But you expected 2,000 records and received only 100.

got angry for the result

Wait... where did the other 1,900 go? 😅

This is usually where API pagination comes into the picture.

Many APIs don't return all records at once. They split the results into smaller pages.

For example:

  • Total records: 2,000
  • Records per page: 100
  • First response: 100
  • Remaining: 1,900

Your request succeeded, but your data collection isn't complete.

disappointed

A few things worth checking:

  • Look for next, next_cursor or total in the response.
  • Check whether the API uses page numbers or cursor-based pagination.
  • Keep fetching until there are no more pages.
  • Verify the final record count.

A 200 OK tells you the request worked. It doesn't guarantee you collected everything.

And that's a pretty easy detail to miss when building an integration 👀

Have you ever spent time debugging missing data, only to discover pagination was the problem?