About Rate Limit for Adobe PDF Services API

I'm currently researching to use the Adobe PDF Services API in our service to convert Word and Excel files to PDFs. 
I have a question regarding the rate limit.

According to your documentation at https://developer.adobe.com/document-services/docs/overview/pdf-services-api/dcserviceslicensing/#usage-limits, "the maximum requests per minute is 25 RPM".

I would like to know if this limit applies to API requests or operation requests.

My program currently calls the API following the steps outlined in the "Using Our APIs" article at https://developer.adobe.com/document-services/docs/overview/pdf-services-api/howtos/api-usage/:

1.  Get an access token
2.  Obtain a signed URL for uploading
3.  Create a PDF conversion job
4.  Poll for job completion
5.  Download the PDF

I need to send at least five API requests per process, and we may send multiple requests if the conversion takes longer, especially during step 4 when polling for job completion.

Could you please clarify if the rate limit applies to API requests or if it includes multiple requests per process?

Thank you.