1. Prepaid Credits

The Service operates on a prepaid credit system. You must maintain a positive balance to use the API. Requests submitted with a zero or negative balance are rejected with HTTP 402.

2. Top-Ups

• Credits are purchased via Stripe Checkout using major credit/debit cards.
• A 5% management fee is added to each top-up (e.g. a $100 top-up adds $95.24 to your wallet).
• Applicable VAT/taxes are calculated and collected by Stripe Tax based on your billing address.
• Minimum top-up: $5.00. Maximum per transaction: $5,000.00.
• Credits are added to your wallet immediately upon successful payment.

3. Usage Billing

• Usage is billed in real time per API request. Token counts are determined by the model provider's tokeniser.
• Pricing is shown on the models page and may vary by context window size (tiered pricing).
• Audio models are billed per second of audio processed.
• Failed requests (non-200 responses) are not billed.
• Health-check and monitoring requests are excluded from billing.

4. Invoices

Invoices are generated automatically by Stripe for each top-up and are emailed to your account email. Monthly usage summaries are available in the dashboard under Billing.

5. Taxes

Prices shown are exclusive of tax. Applicable taxes (VAT, GST, etc.) are calculated at checkout by Stripe Tax and collected separately. B2B customers in the EU may provide a VAT number to apply reverse charge.

6. Budget Controls

You can set monthly spend limits per API key in the dashboard. When a key reaches its budget limit, requests are rejected with HTTP 402 until the next calendar month or until the limit is increased.

7. Overages & Low Balance Alerts

We send email alerts when your balance drops below $10 (configurable in Settings). The Service does not extend credit — once the balance reaches $0, all API requests fail until you top up.

8. Price Changes

We may update model pricing with at least 14 days' notice via email and platform notification. Existing purchased credits are unaffected by price changes — only future consumption is billed at the new rate.

9. Disputes

See Refund Policy for dispute resolution. Chargebacks initiated through your payment provider without first contacting us may result in account suspension.