Billing FAQ

You start at a $0 balance and top up to begin (minimum $10) with topup (returns a checkout link). account_status shows your burn rate and runway. Stopped VMs keep billing; only archived VMs (auto-triggered at zero balance) are free — and recoverable for 24h.

Quick answers to the money questions. For the rate model see Pricing; for exact rates ask the pricing tool.

Do I get free credit?

No — accounts start at a $0 balance and you top up to start. The minimum top-up is $10, drawn down per second as you use resources. Check your balance any time with account_status.

How do I add funds?

top up $20

Your agent calls topup, which returns a short Stripe Checkout link you open in your browser. After you pay, wait_for_topup confirms the balance landed (and surfaces an invoice link). There’s no subscription — you pay for what you use, drawn down from your balance.

What’s my runway?

account_status returns your burn rate (cost per minute across all billing VMs) and runway (time until your balance hits zero at the current rate), plus per-VM status counts. Ask:

what's my burn rate and how long do I have?

Stopped vs archived — what still costs money?

This is the one that surprises people:

• running — billing at the tier rate.
• stopped — still billing the full tier rate. Resources stay allocated, like a stopped VM on any cloud. start_vm to use it again, or destroy_vm to actually stop the charges.
• archived — free. Auto-triggered when your balance hits zero: the hypervisor stops, resources are freed, billing stops. The rootfs is preserved for 24 hours — top up and resume_vm brings it back. After 24h it’s reclaimed.

So “I stopped my VM to save money” doesn’t save money — you need to destroy it (or let it archive). See Backups & restore for what survives each.

Can I cap my spend?

Yes. set_budget_settings sets a monthly budget; with the hard cap enabled, VMs auto-archive when you hit it (same as a zero balance — recoverable for 24h). get_budget_settings shows the current setting.

What about egress?

Outbound traffic is metered separately per GiB (inbound is free). The rate is in the pricing response as egressMicroCentsPerGib.