Prepaid billing allows API users to pre-purchase usage. As of today, all new accounts are enrolled in prepaid billing. We're working on opening this billing type up to all users and will also have a feature that allows eligible prepaid billing users to switch to monthly billing.
Setting up prepaid billing
Here is how new API users can set up prepaid billing:
- Click "Start payment plan"
- Choose the initial amount of credits you want to purchase. The minimum purchase is $5. Currently, the maximum purchase is $50 but we expect to increase this soon!
- Confirm and purchase your initial amount of credits.
- Use auto-recharge to set an automatic recharge amount, which is the amount of credits that will be added to your account when your balance falls below a set threshold.
Please note that any purchased credits will expire after 1 year and they are non-refundable.
After you’ve purchased credits, you should be able to start using the API. Note that there may be a couple minutes of delay while our systems update to reflect your credit balance.
Purchasing additional credits
Once you’ve consumed all your credits, your API requests will start returning an error letting you know you’ve hit your billing quota. If you’d like to continue your API usage, you can return to the billing portal and use the “Add to balance” button to purchase additional credits.
We're working on a feature to automatically keep your credit balance topped up, and will notify all prepaid billing customers when it's available.
Delayed billing
Due to the complexity of our billing and processing systems, there may be delays in our ability to cut off access after you consume all of your credits. This excess usage may appear as a negative credit balance in your billing dashboard, and will be deducted from your next credit purchase.