diff --git a/swh/loader/package/tests/test_utils.py b/swh/loader/package/tests/test_utils.py
--- a/swh/loader/package/tests/test_utils.py
+++ b/swh/loader/package/tests/test_utils.py
@@ -13,7 +13,6 @@
 import pytest
 from requests.exceptions import HTTPError
 
-from swh.loader.exception import NotFound
 import swh.loader.package
 from swh.loader.package.utils import api_info, download, release_name
 
@@ -213,11 +212,11 @@
     status_code = 400
     requests_mock.get(url, status_code=status_code)
 
-    with pytest.raises(NotFound) as e0:
+    with pytest.raises(
+        HTTPError, match=f"{status_code} Client Error: None for url: {url}"
+    ):
         api_info(url)
 
-    assert e0.value.args[0] == "Fail to query '%s'. Reason: %s" % (url, status_code)
-
 
 def test_api_info(requests_mock):
     """Fetching json info from pypi project should be ok"""
@@ -271,3 +270,39 @@
 
     with pytest.raises(HTTPError):
         _check_download_ok(url, dest=str(tmp_path))
+
+
+@pytest.fixture(autouse=True)
+def mock_api_info_retry_sleep(mocker):
+    mocker.patch.object(api_info.retry, "sleep")
+
+
+def test_api_info_retry(mocker, requests_mock, tmp_path):
+    url = "https://example.org/api/endpoint"
+    json_data = {"foo": "bar"}
+
+    requests_mock.get(
+        url,
+        [
+            {"status_code": 429},
+            {"status_code": 429},
+            {
+                "json": json_data,
+                "status_code": 200,
+            },
+        ],
+    )
+
+    assert json.loads(api_info(url)) == json_data
+
+
+def test_api_info_retry_reraise(mocker, requests_mock, tmp_path):
+    url = "https://example.org/api/endpoint"
+
+    requests_mock.get(
+        url,
+        [{"status_code": 429}] * 5,
+    )
+
+    with pytest.raises(HTTPError, match=f"429 Client Error: None for url: {url}"):
+        api_info(url)
diff --git a/swh/loader/package/utils.py b/swh/loader/package/utils.py
--- a/swh/loader/package/utils.py
+++ b/swh/loader/package/utils.py
@@ -34,26 +34,6 @@
 EMPTY_AUTHOR = Person.from_fullname(b"")
 
 
-def api_info(url: str, **extra_params) -> bytes:
-    """Basic api client to retrieve information on project. This deals with
-       fetching json metadata about pypi projects.
-
-    Args:
-        url (str): The api url (e.g PyPI, npm, etc...)
-
-    Raises:
-        NotFound in case of query failures (for some reasons: 404, ...)
-
-    Returns:
-        The associated response's information
-
-    """
-    response = requests.get(url, **{**DEFAULT_PARAMS, **extra_params})
-    if response.status_code != 200:
-        raise NotFound(f"Fail to query '{url}'. Reason: {response.status_code}")
-    return response.content
-
-
 def _content_disposition_filename(header: str) -> Optional[str]:
     fname = None
     fnames = re.findall(r"filename[\*]?=([^;]+)", header)
@@ -81,13 +61,16 @@
     return False
 
 
-@retry(
+throttling_retry = retry(
     retry=_retry_if_throttling,
     wait=wait_exponential(exp_base=10),
     stop=stop_after_attempt(max_attempt_number=5),
     before_sleep=before_sleep_log(logger, logging.WARNING),
     reraise=True,
 )
+
+
+@throttling_retry
 def download(
     url: str,
     dest: str,
@@ -181,6 +164,29 @@
     return filepath, extrinsic_metadata
 
 
+@throttling_retry
+def api_info(url: str, **extra_params) -> bytes:
+    """Basic api client to retrieve information, typically JSON metadata,
+     on software package.
+
+    Args:
+        url (str): The api url (e.g PyPI, npm, etc...)
+
+    Raises:
+        NotFound in case of query failures (for some reasons: 404, ...)
+
+    Returns:
+        The associated response's information
+
+    """
+    logger.debug("Fetching %s", url)
+    response = requests.get(url, **{**DEFAULT_PARAMS, **extra_params})
+    if response.status_code == 404:
+        raise NotFound(f"Fail to query '{url}'. Reason: {response.status_code}")
+    response.raise_for_status()
+    return response.content
+
+
 def release_name(version: str, filename: Optional[str] = None) -> str:
     if filename:
         return "releases/%s/%s" % (version, filename)