Pricing and billing

Credits

Credits are bought in packs from the console. The standard pack is $10 for 2,000 Credits, so 1 Credit is $0.005; larger packs add bonus Credits. Every API amount is in Credits, written with three decimals as a string, for example "157.000".

How a task is priced

Each model has price tiers, listed by get a model and on the model's page. Your input selects the tier, usually by its resolution and whether it includes a video.

A task's price is the rate times the seconds it asks for. A 5-second Kling 4.0 video at 720p is 5 × 31.4 = 157.000 Credits.

Estimate first

Send the same body to estimate a price to get the exact Credits a create would hold, with the seconds or images it priced. An estimate creates no task and holds nothing. Prices can change between an estimate and a create.

Hold, charge and release

1. Accepted. The create answers HTTP 202. The task's price.estimated is the amount to hold.
2. Held. When funding succeeds, the Credits move from your available balance to held, and price.reserved shows them. If funding fails, the task closes with insufficient_balance, balance_negative, budget_exceeded or spending_blocked and nothing is held.
3. Charged. A succeeded task is charged price.charged, the actual usage the model reports. It can differ from the estimate: any unused part of the hold returns to your balance, and usage above the hold is charged too, from your available balance. There is no cap, so price.charged can be above the hold.
4. Released. A task that fails, is canceled or is unresolved charges nothing and releases its hold. This includes tasks refused by content moderation.

Owed Credits

If a charge above the hold is more than your available balance, the rest is owed. Get the balance shows it as owed, and balance (spendable Credits minus owed) goes below zero. While Credits are owed, new tasks are refused with HTTP 402 balance_negative; tasks already accepted still finish and settle. A top-up repays the owed Credits first, and only what is left becomes available.

How the charge is measured

The hold is the estimate. When the task succeeds, the charge follows the actual usage the model reports, so it can be a little above or below the hold:

For example, a Seedream 5.0 Lite request for 4 images holds 4 × 7 = 28.000 Credits. If 3 images are delivered, price.charged is 21.000 and the other 7.000 Credits return to your balance.

Seedance 2.5 edit

With omni_reference_task_type: "edit", duration must be -1; any other value, or no duration at all, is refused with 422 invalid_input (rule duration_must_be_auto). The output runs as long as the source video, so the estimate shows basis.auto: true and the hold is:

The hold is billed seconds × the video tier's rate. The charge is the tokens the model reports, at the same rate, with no cap: price.charged can be above the hold. The part above the hold comes from your available balance, and what the balance cannot cover is owed, so new creates get 402 balance_negative until a top-up. See [Owed Credits](#owed-credits).

Ledger entries for a task

Each step writes ledger entries whose reference starts with the step and ends with the task ID, and whose task_id names the task. The partial charge above writes:

A full charge writes only the settled: entry. A charge above the hold writes settled: for the whole hold, then settled-extra: (from available to consumed) for the part your balance paid and, if the balance ran out, settled-owed: (from owed to consumed) for the part owed.

A later top-up repays owed Credits with repaid: entries, from available to owed. A task that charges nothing writes released:, from held to available. A refund writes reversed:, from consumed to available. Refunding a charge above the hold returns all of it: the overage goes back to the Credits that paid it, and any owed part is cancelled with a reversed: entry from consumed to owed. When a hold draws on more than one batch of Credits, for example paid and bonus Credits, each step writes one entry per batch.

Refunds

When a charged task is refunded, its billing_status becomes refunded, price.charged becomes 0.000 and price.refunded shows the Credits returned, which is what the task had been charged. price.estimated keeps the amount that was held.

Reconcile

Read the balance with get the balance, using a project key with balance:read or a billing key, and every movement with list ledger entries, using a billing key with billing:read. Group entries by task_id. A settled task's settled:, settled-extra: and settled-owed: entries equal its price.charged; a refunded task's reversed: entries equal its price.refunded.

Packs are paid in US dollars. Amounts exclude tax unless stated otherwise.