Balance & billing

Prepaid, pay-per-call billing for MCP and the REST API. Funds never expire, each successful call debits its price, and failed calls are not charged.

How billing works

Billing is prepaid and per-call, with the same rates and balance over MCP and REST. AI-model tools bill per model queried (query one and pay only for that model). Data tools bill once per call: /v1/keywords by outcome and /v1/trends at a fixed rate; /v1/usage is free. A call is only billed on success; a failed call is recorded but not charged.

Tracker lifecycle actions and stored-history reads are free. Scheduled and manual tracker runs bill their saved primitive calls at normal rates. Activating or resuming requires confirmation of the current maximum cost per run and authorizes recurring calls until the tracker is paused. See Tracker MCP tools or the Tracker API.

Top-ups

Add funds via Stripe ($25 minimum). Your balance never expires. New accounts get $1 free to test. All prices and balances are in USD, with up to five decimal places for small charges.

Spend limits and concurrent calls

Optional daily and monthly spend limits are enforced before provider work starts. Cite42 temporarily reserves each call’s maximum possible price, and live reservations count toward both limits until those calls settle. The reservation is then replaced by the exact charge, which may be lower. With concurrent work, another call can therefore receive 429 while finalized spend is still below the limit; retry after the in-flight calls finish.

Billing in the response

Every billed call reports the exact cost and remaining Cite42 balance in USD.

Over MCP

Read cite42Billing; legacy credit fields are retained only for compatibility.

{
  "cite42Billing": {
    "currency": "USD",
    "chargedUsd": "0.20",
    "remainingUsd": "14.40"
  }
}

Check your balance with cite42_balance. For prices, call cite42_pricing with { "currency": "USD" }.

Over the REST API

Read billing.cost.usd and billing.balance.usd.

{
  "billing": {
    "cost": {
      "usd": "0.20"
    },
    "balance": {
      "usd": "14.40"
    }
  }
}

Request GET /v1/pricing?currency=USD for dollar prices. Older credit-valued fields and the default REST pricing response remain available for existing integrations; their units have not changed.