Billing and Credits
Free trial, request-based credit costs, wallet top-ups, auto top-up, and BYOK billing bypass.
Free trial, request-based credit costs, wallet top-ups, auto top-up, and BYOK billing bypass.
- Set top-up and minimum credit policy.
- Enable per-user and per-key rate limits.
- Test 429 + retry behavior in staging.
- Monitor charged credits consistency in Usage.
Billing principle
Users are billed in credits, not raw provider token costs. One dollar buys 100 credits.
- Mode-level default charge is fixed per request (reserved upfront)
- After the request completes, a settlement step reconciles actual execution usage
- Wallet balance is shown in
/credits - Paid credits never expire
Free trial
Every new account receives 20 free credits on signup. Free credits never expire — use them at your own pace. Purchase additional credit packs anytime to add more credits to your wallet.
Free-tier accounts can use models marked is_free=true from the open catalog.
Each request still has a minimum 1-credit charge (unless BYOK).
Paid-model access unlocks after your first top-up (or via BYOK for direct provider billing).
Default charges
| Mode | Default charge | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| Chat | 1 credit | Single-model or auto chat |
| Compare | 2 credits | Parallel model comparison |
| Blend | 4 credits | Synthesis workflow |
| Judge | 5 credits | Contest + judge scoring |
| Mesh | 1 credit | Failover routing |
How settlement works
Credits are reserved before the request starts, then settled after execution:
If actual usage exceeds the reserved credits, the difference is charged. If usage is lower, unused credits are refunded. All adjustments appear as separate transactions in your history.
Top-up flow
Minimum top-up is $3. Maximum single top-up is $10,000.
Auto top-up
Enable automatic refills so requests never fail due to low balance:
- Complete one Stripe checkout to save a payment method
- Enable auto top-up in
/settingsand set your preferred amount - Set a balance threshold — when credits drop below it, a top-up is triggered
- Set a monthly spending cap to control costs
Auto top-ups are processed as off-session Stripe PaymentIntents using your saved payment method. Monthly spending is tracked and capped to prevent runaway charges.
BYOK (Bring Your Own Key)
When a BYOK provider key is configured, requests route directly to the provider using your key. BYOK requests skip credit charges entirely — you pay the provider directly. This is useful when customer contracts require provider-direct billing.
Some models in the catalog are marked is_free=true (provider-side free tier).
On LLMWise billing, requests still use the normal minimum request charge.
Purpose of open catalog models
Provider-free models are best used for:
- Prompt and UX prototyping before spending paid credits
- Fallback paths for non-critical traffic during provider spikes
- A/B checks against paid models so you only pay where quality difference matters
Catalog updates are synced from OpenRouter, so available is_free=true models can change over time.
You can always fetch the current live list from:
GET /api/v1/models
Filter rows where is_free=true.
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