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Docs/consumer / pricing billing

Pricing & Billing

PipeAgent follows a premium pay-as-you-go model designed for high-performance AI integration. We prioritize reliability, data quality, and predictable billing for professional data consumers.

Billing Model

PipeAgent supports three pricing modes at the feed level:

1. Free Data Feeds (price_type = free)

Usage is completely free.

  • No consumption charges.
  • No minimum monthly spend requirements for accounts using only free feeds.
  • No card required for initial integration.

    • 2. Metered Data Feeds (price_type = metered)

    Metered feeds have a "Consumption Rate" (for example $0.008 / 1k calls). You are charged by request volume.

    3. One-time Purchase Feeds (price_type = one_time)

    Some feeds are sold as a single unlock payment (for example $1.00 one-time; the platform minimum is $1.00 per unlock).

  • You pay once to unlock access for your account.
  • After purchase, reads are allowed without per-call metered charges for that feed.
  • If not purchased, access attempts return a purchase-required/forbidden response and the UI routes you to checkout.

    • Pricing Transparency Policy

    Providers are allowed to adjust API pricing to reflect data acquisition costs. However, to ensure predictability for AI agents and developers:

  • Any price increase requires a minimum of 24-hour advance notice displayed on the Feed details page.
  • Your historical API calls are always billed at the price point effective at the time of the request.
  • For one-time feeds, the checkout amount is verified server-side against the feed price configuration before unlock is granted.

    • Minimum Service Fee

    To maintain our high-reliability edge infrastructure, a $1.00 minimum monthly service fee applies if your account consumes any paid API feeds during a billing cycle.

  • If your total consumption of paid feeds is $1.00 or more, you only pay for your actual usage (no extra fee).
  • If your total consumption of paid feeds is less than $1.00, your total charge for that month will be scaled to $1.00.
  • Important: This fee does not apply to accounts that only used free feeds.

    • Safety Valve (Auto-Charge)

    PipeAgent also implements a Safety Valve to prevent extended service interruption when billing fails.

    How it works

    1. After you link a payment method, we create (or reuse) a Stripe metered subscription for your account.

    2. On that subscription, we configure a billing threshold:

    - When your pending metered charges reach $5.00, Stripe attempts to charge your payment method automatically.

    3. Outcomes:

    - If the charge succeeds (Stripe emits invoice.paid), your API keys remain active and billing continues normally.

    - If the charge fails (Stripe emits invoice.payment_failed), your API keys are temporarily suspended to avoid calls that can’t be billed.

    What you will see in the app

  • When your pending usage reaches $5.00, we attempt an automatic charge.
  • If payment succeeds, your API keys remain active.
  • If payment fails, your API keys are temporarily paused and automatically restored after payment is settled.

    • Relationship to the $1 minimum monthly service fee

  • The $5 Safety Valve is an operational guardrail (mid-cycle threshold to keep the service usable and to suspend on payment failure).
  • The $1.00 minimum monthly service fee is a monthly pricing floor handled by Stripe for paid usage during the billing cycle (it does not replace the safety valve behavior above).

    • Free feeds

    If you only call free feeds, we should record 0 billed credits, so Stripe receives no metered consumption. In that case, neither the $5 Safety Valve nor the $1.00 minimum monthly service fee should be triggered.

    One-time purchase feeds

    One-time purchases do not use metered thresholds:

  • No per-call metered accumulation for that unlocked feed.
  • No $5 threshold behavior for those unlocked reads.
  • Your one-time checkout appears as a standard Stripe payment event.

    • Refund Policy

    Due to the digital nature of API requests, all consumption and service fees are non-refundable. If you have any billing discrepancies, please contact our support team within 15 days of the charge.

    Version 1.0.4 - Premium Infrastructure