Credits and billing

Requests are paid for in credits, and one credit is one US dollar. A request is charged the model provider’s list price for the tokens it used, and a request with no credits behind it is refused before it runs. Credits are a balance on your plan: an organization needs an active plan, a card on file and credits to make requests. Pricing is on helping.io.

What a request costs

A response’s usage holds the tokens it was charged for. Multiply each count by the model’s price per million tokens, listed on helping.io/models.

For example, anthropic/claude-sonnet-5 is listed at $2.00 per million input tokens and $10.00 per million output tokens. A response whose usage reads:

{
  "input_tokens": 1200,
  "input_tokens_details": { "cache_write_tokens": 0, "cached_tokens": 0 },
  "output_tokens": 300,
  "output_tokens_details": { "reasoning_tokens": 0 },
  "total_tokens": 1500
}

costs:

Tokens	Price per million	Credits
1,200 input	$2.00	0.0024
300 output	$10.00	0.0030
Total		0.0054

Tokens read from or written to a prompt cache (cached_tokens and cache_write_tokens) are charged at the provider’s cache prices instead of the input price.

usage is kept on the stored response, so a client whose connection dropped can still find out what it was charged: Retrieve a response.

Buy credits

Only the organization’s owner can buy credits. Admins can see the balance but not buy.

1. In the app, open Settings → Billing.
2. Under Add credits, pick an amount or enter a Custom amount. The card shows the subtotal, the Service fee and the Total you will be charged.
3. Select Buy credits and pay on the checkout page.

You can also buy credits when you start your plan, by leaving Add credits now checked. Add credits appears only once the organization has a plan, because credits cannot be spent without one.

See your balance and spend

• Balance: Settings → Billing, under Credit balance. Owners and admins can see it. Purchase history on the same page lists each purchase with its credits, service fee and the balance after it.
• Spend: Settings → Usage lists each charge with its date, model, tokens, credits and the balance after it.

When a request is refused

Status	code	Meaning
402	payment_method_required	The organization has no payment method on file, so no request can be served; add one in the billing settings.
429	insufficient_quota	The organization has no active plan, or no credit balance to pay for the request; the message says which.

• 402 payment_method_required: the organization has no card on file. The owner adds one in Settings → Billing: Start a plan if there is no plan yet, otherwise Manage billing.
• 429 insufficient_quota: the organization has no active plan or no credit balance, and the message says which. The owner starts the plan or buys credits as above. It is not a rate limit, and retrying does not change the answer.

Neither refusal creates or charges anything. Running out while a request is already running is insufficient_credits; see Errors.

A budget an administrator set is a different refusal: Spend controls.