The credit unit
connect0 bills in credits. The unit is fixed: 1 credit = $0.01 (one US cent). Everything — every plan, pack, and per-unit rate — is expressed in credits, so you always compare apples to apples. Credits live in a single per-account wallet; work draws the wallet down and top-ups build it back up.
You never pay for connect0 by the seat or by the API call in dollars directly. You buy credits, and usage burns them.
How usage becomes credits
Every action you run — an agent turn, a model call, a minute of sandbox compute, a connector sync, a byte of egress, a GiB-month of storage — is a metered event. Each event type has a published per-unit rate. We meter the raw units as you go, then, on an hourly rollup, price those units and convert the total to credits (rounded up per line). Those credits are burned from your wallet.
Because billing is hourly and after-the-fact, your balance can briefly dip slightly negative before a burn settles; a small overdraft floor absorbs that, and hard stops kick in beyond it. Representative rates:
| Action | Credits | ≈ USD |
|---|---|---|
| Model chat call — ~1K in / 500 out tokens (varies by model) | 3 | $0.03 |
| Image generation — one standard image | 40 | $0.40 |
| Sandbox compute — one minute of `sh` runtime | 2 | $0.02 |
| Storage — per GiB · per month | 5 | $0.05 |
| Web fetch — one `web_fetch` page | 1 | $0.01 |
| Connector sync — one materialise of a bound source | 2 | $0.02 |
These are the rates you are billed at. Model-token and BYOK rates come from the live model catalog, and your dashboard always shows the exact usage for your account.
Three ways to get credits
You top up your wallet three ways, and they stack:
1. Starter grant (free)
Every new account gets a free starter grant so you can build immediately — no card required. Starter credits are time-boxed (they expire ~30 days after grant) to keep the free tier fresh.
2. Subscriptions
A subscription grants a batch of credits every month at a discount to buying them à la carte, and unlocks more concurrency and included storage. Plan credits are granted each cycle and expire at the end of the cycle plus a grace period, so they’re “use-it-or-refresh.”
Starter
$19/mo · 2,200 credits/mo
1× concurrency · 5 GiB storage
Pro
$49/mo · 6,200 credits/mo
2× concurrency · 20 GiB storage
Ultra
$99/mo · 13,500 credits/mo
4× concurrency · 100 GiB storage
3. Credit packs
One-time top-ups with no subscription. Bigger packs carry a bonus, and — unlike plan credits — purchased credits never expire.
Mini
$5
500 credits
Standard
$20
2,100 credits · +5%
Plus
$100
11,000 credits · +10%
Max
$500
60,000 credits · +20%
When you burn credits, the soonest-to-expire ones are consumed first, so your non-expiring pack credits are preserved for as long as possible.
Platform key vs bring-your-own-key (BYOK)
Model calls can bill two different ways depending on whose provider key runs them:
| Platform pool key | BYOK | |
|---|---|---|
| Who pays the provider | connect0 (bundled into your credit cost) | You, directly, on your own provider bill |
| What connect0 charges | The full model sell price, in credits | Only a small orchestration fee, in credits |
| Best for | Getting started, no key management | Volume/enterprise with your own provider pricing |
With a platform pool key, we manage the provider relationship and bill you in credits for the model tokens you use — nothing to set up. With BYOK, you attach your own provider key; you pay that provider directly for tokens, and connect0 charges only an orchestration fee (a small percentage of the notional model price plus a tiny per-call flat) for routing, budgets, audit, and observability. BYOK shines when you already have negotiated provider pricing and want connect0 purely as the control plane.
Spend controls
No surprise bills. Set a hard spend cap and runs stop before they exceed it. Turn on balance alerts to get notified before you run low. Scope per-project budgets so one team or one agent can’t drain the account. And you can pre-purchase storage reservations at a term discount when you know you’ll hold data for a while.
Reading your usage
Your dashboard shows your live credit balance, month-to-date spend, and a breakdown of what burned credits — in both units (tokens, compute-minutes, GiB) and credits. That live view is always the source of truth; the rates on this page are illustrative.
Enterprise & committed credits
Need volume discounts, committed-use credit contracts, invoicing, or a custom BYOK orchestration rate? Reach out at hi@connect0.ai and we’ll set you up.