> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.fetchin.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Pay As You Go
> Buy credits outright, with or without a subscription: rates, expiry and how they are spent
## The Two Ways To Buy
Credits reach your account two ways, and you can use either or both.
| | Subscription | Pay as you go |
| -------------- | -------------------------- | -------------------------------- |
| What it is | A monthly plan that renews | A one-time purchase |
| Cheapest rate | **\$1.00** per 1,000 | **\$1.50** per 1,000 |
| Smallest | 50,000 credits (\$50/mo) | **20,000 credits (\$30)** |
| Credits arrive | Every renewal date | Once, when the payment clears |
| Left over | Discarded at renewal | Kept until they expire |
| Lifetime | Until your next renewal | **12 months** from that purchase |
A subscription is the cheaper way to buy volume — a third less at the entry
sizes, and further below that as the volume grows. Pay as you go is the way to
buy credits without committing to a month: a backfill, a seasonal spike, a
month that ran long, or simply a first purchase small enough not to think about.
Both are bought from **[fetchin.io/billing](https://fetchin.io/billing)**,
where the same configurator prices either one — pick the volume, switch the
tab, and compare the two totals before you pay. Public prices are at
[fetchin.io/pricing](https://fetchin.io/pricing).
## Rates
Rates are **progressive**, in units of 1,000 credits. Buying more lowers the
price of the credits above each threshold; it does not reprice the ones below it.
| Credits in one purchase | Rate per 1,000 |
| ----------------------- | -------------- |
| First 1,000,000 | \$1.50 |
| 1,000,000 – 5,000,000 | \$1.45 |
| 5,000,000 – 10,000,000 | \$1.40 |
| Above 10,000,000 | \$1.35 |
### What that costs
| Credits | Total | Effective rate per 1,000 |
| ---------- | -------- | ------------------------ |
| 20,000 | \$30 | \$1.50 |
| 50,000 | \$75 | \$1.50 |
| 250,000 | \$375 | \$1.50 |
| 1,000,000 | \$1,500 | \$1.50 |
| 2,000,000 | \$2,950 | \$1.48 |
| 5,000,000 | \$7,300 | \$1.46 |
| 10,000,000 | \$14,300 | \$1.43 |
| 50,000,000 | \$68,300 | \$1.37 |
Because the rates are marginal, 5,000,000 credits cost \*\*$7,300**, not
5,000 × $1.45 = $7,250: the first million is still billed at $1.50 and only the
four million above it get the lower rate. The configurator shows the exact
total and the effective per-1,000 rate before you confirm, so you never have to
reproduce the arithmetic.
### Sizes
* **Minimum**: 20,000 credits (\$30)
* **Maximum**: 50,000,000 credits in a single purchase
* **Steps**: 20,000, then 50,000 up to 1,000,000, then 250,000
Need more than 50,000,000 at once, or an invoice instead of a card? Contact sales.
## How They Are Spent
A request always draws from your subscription first, and only reaches your
pay-as-you-go credits once the plan allowance for the period is exhausted. Among
those, the ones expiring **soonest** are drawn down first.
Your monthly allowance. It is replaced at each renewal, so anything unspent is
lost — which is exactly why it is spent first.
Then your soonest-expiring purchase, until it is empty, then the next one.
Only when every balance is empty does a request fail with
`402 QUOTA_EXHAUSTED`.
This order is fixed. There is no setting to reverse it, and there is no way to
reserve credits for a particular key, endpoint or environment.
## Expiry
Each purchase expires **12 months after its own purchase date**. Buying again
never extends an earlier purchase — two bought six months apart have two
different expiry dates and are consumed in that order.
`paygExpiresAt` on [`GET /api/v1/subscription`](/api-reference/endpoint/get-subscription)
gives the date of the soonest-expiring credits you still hold (`null` if you hold
none), which is the date to watch: it is when your balance can drop without you
having called anything.
Pay-as-you-go credits are **non-refundable**, and expired credits are not
refunded or restored. Buy what you will realistically consume within the year
rather than reaching for the largest rate break you can afford.
## What They Do Not Change
* **Your rate limit.** Requests per second is a property of your plan. Buying
credits never raises it, and no purchase size unlocks more throughput — see
[Rate Limits](/concepts/rate-limits). If you are hitting `429`, credits are not
the fix.
* **Your plan.** `creditsLimit` keeps reporting the plan allowance, and
`creditsUsed` keeps counting the plan alone, so both stay meaningful after a
purchase.
* **Your subscription's fate.** If you later cancel your plan, its credits stop
renewing and your rate limit falls back to the default 5 requests per second.
Your pay-as-you-go credits stay, and you can keep spending them until they
expire.
## Buying
Go to **[fetchin.io/billing](https://fetchin.io/billing)** and switch the
configurator to the **Pay as you go** tab.
Choose a preset or set your own. The total and the effective per-1,000 rate
update as you go, and the subscription tab prices the same volume for
comparison.
Checkout is handled by Stripe. Credits are added to your account as soon as
the payment clears — normally within seconds.
**[fetchin.io/credits](https://fetchin.io/credits)** shows the new balance and
each purchase's expiry date, and
[`GET /api/v1/subscription`](/api-reference/endpoint/get-subscription) returns
it as `paygCreditsRemaining` / `paygExpiresAt`. In-flight calls start
succeeding again with no redeploy.
A past-due subscription does not block a purchase. These credits are prepaid, so
you can buy them to keep working while a card issue is being sorted out.
## Checking Your Balance in Code
```bash theme={null}
curl "https://api.fetchin.io/api/v1/subscription" \
-H "X-API-Key: your-api-key-here"
```
```json theme={null}
{
"plan": "custom",
"active": true,
"status": "active",
"creditsRemaining": 684230,
"subscriptionCreditsRemaining": 184230,
"paygCreditsRemaining": 500000,
"paygExpiresAt": "2027-03-02T00:00:00.000Z",
"creditsLimit": 250000,
"creditsUsed": 65770,
"renewalDate": "2026-07-15T00:00:00.000Z",
"rpsLimit": 20,
"cancelAtPeriodEnd": false
}
```
`creditsRemaining` is the sum of both balances — the number to gate on. Watch
`paygCreditsRemaining` if you want to know when your one-time credits are running
low, and `paygExpiresAt` to be reminded before a batch lapses.
Gate your traffic on `creditsRemaining > 0` alone. `active` is about billing
standing, and an account with no subscription but a live pay-as-you-go balance
reads `status: "free"` while being perfectly able to call the API — requiring
`active` there would stop traffic that would have succeeded.
## Common Questions
Yes. Sign up, buy, call the API — 20,000 credits for \$30 is the smallest way
in. Your rate limit is the default 5 requests per second until you take a plan.
Yes. You can hold several at once. They are consumed soonest-expiry first, and
each keeps its own 12-month clock.
A subscription, at every volume — about a third less at the entry sizes and
around 40% less at a million credits and above. Pay as you go buys you the
absence of a commitment, not a better rate.
No. Every endpoint bills the same credits whichever balance pays — see
[Quotas](/concepts/quotas) for the per-endpoint table.
No, including the unused portion, and expired credits are not restored.
No. Credits and throughput are separate axes. Higher sustained RPS comes from
a plan — contact sales.