I saw in some question on Stack Exchange that the limitation can be a function of the number of requests per 15 minutes and depends also on the complexity of the algorithm,
import tweepy
auth = tweepy.OAuthHandler(consumer_key, consumer_secret)
auth.set_access_token(access_token, access_token_secret)
# will notify user on ratelimit and will wait by it self no need of sleep.
api = tweepy.API(auth, wait_on_rate_limit=True, wait_on_rate_limit_notify=True)