BillingReference
Accounts are strictly prepaid. Your card is only charged to add credit you chose; usage never bills it, and a balance cannot go below zero.
Understand how a call is paid
- Before work starts, the gateway holds an upper bound of the call's cost. For chat: the prompt (estimated generously) plus
max_tokensof output at the dearest band, plus 25%. For other services: the call's price (autosearch holds the deep price). - The call runs.
- The hold settles at the actual cost, never more than the hold, and the rest is released at once.
- A call that fails is released in full. A hold that is never settled expires on its own and is not charged.
If the hold cannot be covered, the call is refused with 402 insufficient_credits before anything runs.
Free credit
$10 at sign-up, once per network, device and inbox, valid for 90 days. It can pay for models, search and maps (images count as search), is spent before paid credit on them, and never pays for mail. Search, images and maps are locked on the Free tier, so until your first top-up it is spent on models only, within the Free tier's $10 monthly cap. The amount is fixed when the account is created.
Top up your balance
Card payments through Stripe, from $5. $50 or more adds 10% bonus credit and $100 or more adds 15%. Your first payment is verified with your bank (3-D Secure).
| A $50 top-up | $50 + $5.00 bonus | $55.00 |
|---|---|---|
| A $100 top-up | $100 + $15.00 bonus | $115.00 |
| Tier | Largest top-up | Top-ups per day |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $100 | $250 |
| Starter | $250 | $500 |
| Build | $1,000 | $2,000 |
| Scale | $5,000 | $10,000 |
| Pro | $10,000 | $25,000 |
Turn on automatic top-up
Off until you turn it on and record consent, and not on the Free tier. You set the amount (at least $5), the balance that triggers it (up to $5,000) and a monthly cap. It charges your saved card when your paid balance drops below the threshold after a call, or when a call needs more than is left; that call waits up to 15 seconds for the money, then tries once more.
- One attempt at a time, at least 60 seconds apart, and not for an hour after a failure.
- Two failed charges, or a bank asking for authentication, pause it until you turn it back on.
- Charges stay within your monthly cap, your tier's caps and your tier's daily top-up limit.
| Tier | Largest automatic charge | Automatic charges per month |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | $50 | $200 |
| Build | $200 | $1,000 |
| Scale | $1,000 | $5,000 |
| Pro | $2,500 | $20,000 |
Refunds and disputes
A refunded top-up removes the credit it added, bonus included. A dispute does the same and pauses the account until it is resolved; a dispute decided in your favour restores the credit. If the credit was already spent, the difference is owed (402 payment_required) until a top-up clears it.
Units
Balances are kept in microcents: $1 is 100,000,000. cost_usd fields and the x-kaer-cost-usd header carry up to 8 decimal places.