diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index da2b41a5f5e3c..f81375479a4ef 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -29,6 +29,7 @@ time before a new metric is included by the plugin.
 - [#1275](https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/pull/1275): Allow wildcard filtering of varnish stats.
 - [#1142](https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/pull/1142): Support for glob patterns in exec plugin commands configuration.
 - [#1278](https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/pull/1278): RabbitMQ input: made url parameter optional by using DefaultURL (http://localhost:15672) if not specified
+- [#1197](https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/pull/1197): Limit AWS GetMetricStatistics requests to 10 per second.
 
 ### Bugfixes
 
diff --git a/internal/limiter/limiter.go b/internal/limiter/limiter.go
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000..c5689751de8f2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/internal/limiter/limiter.go
@@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
+package limiter
+
+import (
+	"sync"
+	"time"
+)
+
+// NewRateLimiter returns a rate limiter that will will emit from the C
+// channel only 'n' times every 'rate' seconds.
+func NewRateLimiter(n int, rate time.Duration) *rateLimiter {
+	r := &rateLimiter{
+		C:        make(chan bool),
+		rate:     rate,
+		n:        n,
+		shutdown: make(chan bool),
+	}
+	r.wg.Add(1)
+	go r.limiter()
+	return r
+}
+
+type rateLimiter struct {
+	C    chan bool
+	rate time.Duration
+	n    int
+
+	shutdown chan bool
+	wg       sync.WaitGroup
+}
+
+func (r *rateLimiter) Stop() {
+	close(r.shutdown)
+	r.wg.Wait()
+	close(r.C)
+}
+
+func (r *rateLimiter) limiter() {
+	defer r.wg.Done()
+	ticker := time.NewTicker(r.rate)
+	defer ticker.Stop()
+	counter := 0
+	for {
+		select {
+		case <-r.shutdown:
+			return
+		case <-ticker.C:
+			counter = 0
+		default:
+			if counter < r.n {
+				select {
+				case r.C <- true:
+					counter++
+				case <-r.shutdown:
+					return
+				}
+			}
+		}
+	}
+}
diff --git a/internal/limiter/limiter_test.go b/internal/limiter/limiter_test.go
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000..83c9d86f1957a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/internal/limiter/limiter_test.go
@@ -0,0 +1,54 @@
+package limiter
+
+import (
+	"testing"
+	"time"
+
+	"github.com/stretchr/testify/assert"
+)
+
+func TestRateLimiter(t *testing.T) {
+	r := NewRateLimiter(5, time.Second)
+	ticker := time.NewTicker(time.Millisecond * 75)
+
+	// test that we can only get 5 receives from the rate limiter
+	counter := 0
+outer:
+	for {
+		select {
+		case <-r.C:
+			counter++
+		case <-ticker.C:
+			break outer
+		}
+	}
+
+	assert.Equal(t, 5, counter)
+	r.Stop()
+	// verify that the Stop function closes the channel.
+	_, ok := <-r.C
+	assert.False(t, ok)
+}
+
+func TestRateLimiterMultipleIterations(t *testing.T) {
+	r := NewRateLimiter(5, time.Millisecond*50)
+	ticker := time.NewTicker(time.Millisecond * 250)
+
+	// test that we can get 15 receives from the rate limiter
+	counter := 0
+outer:
+	for {
+		select {
+		case <-ticker.C:
+			break outer
+		case <-r.C:
+			counter++
+		}
+	}
+
+	assert.True(t, counter > 10)
+	r.Stop()
+	// verify that the Stop function closes the channel.
+	_, ok := <-r.C
+	assert.False(t, ok)
+}
diff --git a/plugins/inputs/cloudwatch/cloudwatch.go b/plugins/inputs/cloudwatch/cloudwatch.go
index e6671a3bf9b6d..1bd2d5c077884 100644
--- a/plugins/inputs/cloudwatch/cloudwatch.go
+++ b/plugins/inputs/cloudwatch/cloudwatch.go
@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@ import (
 	"github.com/influxdata/telegraf"
 	"github.com/influxdata/telegraf/internal"
 	internalaws "github.com/influxdata/telegraf/internal/config/aws"
+	"github.com/influxdata/telegraf/internal/limiter"
 	"github.com/influxdata/telegraf/plugins/inputs"
 )
 
@@ -170,11 +171,13 @@ func (c *CloudWatch) Gather(acc telegraf.Accumulator) error {
 	now := time.Now()
 
 	// limit concurrency or we can easily exhaust user connection limit
-	semaphore := make(chan byte, 64)
-
+	// see cloudwatch API request limits:
+	// http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudWatch/latest/DeveloperGuide/cloudwatch_limits.html
+	lmtr := limiter.NewRateLimiter(10, time.Second)
+	defer lmtr.Stop()
 	for _, m := range metrics {
-		semaphore <- 0x1
-		go c.gatherMetric(acc, m, now, semaphore, errChan)
+		<-lmtr.C
+		go c.gatherMetric(acc, m, now, errChan)
 	}
 
 	for i := 1; i <= metricCount; i++ {
@@ -257,12 +260,16 @@ func (c *CloudWatch) fetchNamespaceMetrics() (metrics []*cloudwatch.Metric, err
 /*
  * Gather given Metric and emit any error
  */
-func (c *CloudWatch) gatherMetric(acc telegraf.Accumulator, metric *cloudwatch.Metric, now time.Time, semaphore chan byte, errChan chan error) {
+func (c *CloudWatch) gatherMetric(
+	acc telegraf.Accumulator,
+	metric *cloudwatch.Metric,
+	now time.Time,
+	errChan chan error,
+) {
 	params := c.getStatisticsInput(metric, now)
 	resp, err := c.client.GetMetricStatistics(params)
 	if err != nil {
 		errChan <- err
-		<-semaphore
 		return
 	}
 
@@ -299,7 +306,6 @@ func (c *CloudWatch) gatherMetric(acc telegraf.Accumulator, metric *cloudwatch.M
 	}
 
 	errChan <- nil
-	<-semaphore
 }
 
 /*