Why am I being told I have reached a limit?

There are two different ceilings.

Guests get a small allowance before being asked to create a free account. Creating one is free and lifts it immediately.

Signed-in accounts have a daily fair-use ceiling that ordinary cooking never reaches. It exists to stop automated abuse driving up costs, and it resets at midnight UTC.

Neither is a paywall. If you have hit the signed-in ceiling during normal use, tell us - that is a limit set wrongly, not a limit you broke.