Billing, Plans, and Add-ons
Free preview, Starter and Teams allowances, token-settled billing, add-on credits, and BYOK.
Free preview, Starter and Teams allowances, token-settled billing, add-on credits, and BYOK.
- Set top-up and minimum credit policy.
- Enable per-user and per-key rate limits.
- Test 429 + retry behavior in staging.
- Monitor token and billing consistency in Usage.
Billing principle
LLMWise is now subscription-first with token-settled billing.
- Free gives you a 5-message preview
- Starter includes 10M tokens/month and stays on the Auto lane only
- Teams includes 20M tokens/month and unlocks manual GPT, Claude, and Gemini Pro access
- When included plan tokens are exhausted, add-on credits can extend usage
- Final billing still settles from the actual tokens used by the selected model(s)
Free preview and plan access
Every new account starts with 5 free messages total. No card required. New users move to Starter or Teams for ongoing usage.
New users must have an active Starter or Teams subscription before buying add-on credits.
Legacy wallet users keep their existing wallet path.
BYOK still bypasses LLMWise billing entirely.
Plans
| Plan | Allowance | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 5 messages total | Preview the product before subscribing |
| Starter | 10M tokens / month | Auto lane only, curated cheap routing pool |
| Teams | 20M tokens / month | Auto + manual GPT, Claude, Gemini Pro, plus Compare / Blend / Judge |
How settlement works
Included plan tokens or add-on credits are reserved before the request starts, then settled after execution:
If actual usage exceeds the starting reserve, the difference is charged. If usage is lower, unused reserve is returned. All adjustments appear in request history and billing views.
Mode reserves
These are starting reserves, not flat final prices:
| Mode | Starting reserve | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| Chat | 1 credit | Single-model or Auto chat |
| Compare | 2 credits | Parallel model comparison (Teams) |
| Blend | 4 credits | Synthesis workflow (Teams) |
| Judge | 5 credits | Contest + judge scoring (Teams) |
| Mesh | 1 credit | Failover routing |
Add-on flow
Minimum add-on purchase is $3. Maximum single purchase is $10,000.
Auto top-up
Enable automatic add-on refills so requests never fail after plan exhaustion:
- Complete one Stripe checkout to save a payment method
- Enable auto top-up in
/settingsand set your preferred amount - Set a balance threshold — when add-on 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.
On LLMWise billing, requests still settle through the normal token-based billing flow unless you are using BYOK.
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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