Billing and Credits
Free trial, credit costs, wallet top-ups, auto top-up, settlement formula, and BYOK billing bypass.
Free trial, credit costs, wallet top-ups, auto top-up, settlement formula, 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 provider cost
- Wallet balance is shown in
/credits - Paid credits never expire
Free trial
Every new account receives 40 free credits on signup. Free credits expire after 7 days. Once expired, unused free credits are removed and the account moves to free_expired status. Purchase any credit pack to unlock your account — paid credits have no expiry.
Default charges
| Mode | Default charge | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| Chat | 1 credit | Single-model or auto chat |
| Compare | 3 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 the real provider cost is known:
If the actual provider cost (plus margin) exceeds the reserved credits, additional credits are charged. If it costs less, the difference is refunded. All adjustments appear as separate transactions in your history.
Top-up flow
Minimum top-up is $10. 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 as free. Requests to free models also skip the credit charge.
ChatKit-style guided help
Product-scoped assistant for LLMWise docs and API usage. It does not answer unrelated topics.
Sign in to ask implementation questions and get runnable snippets.
Sign in to use assistant