Billing

VelvetAPI is prepaid. You add credits to your balance and each task is paid from it. There’s no subscription and no monthly minimum.

How a task is charged

1. Hold. When POST /v1/tasks accepts a task, its price is taken from your balance as a hold. If the balance can’t cover it, the request fails with 402 insufficient_balance and nothing runs.
2. Charge. If the task succeeds, the hold becomes the charge.
3. Release. If the task fails, is cancelled, has its images withheld by the safety check, or hasn’t finished 30 minutes after it was created, the whole hold goes back to your balance.

The task’s price_usd is the amount held, and charged if it succeeds. Prices are on the pricing page and each model’s page:

price = images × (per-image price + reference images × per-reference-image price)

POST /v1/quotes prices a request without running it. GET /v1/account returns your balance, with the holds of unfinished tasks already taken out:

curl https://api.velvetapi.dev/v1/account \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $VELVET_API_KEY"

{ "id": "7d0e5b8a-2c41-4f7e-9b1a-3e6f2d8c9a10", "balance_usd": 42.5 }

Top-ups

Top up on the Billing page of the console:

• Amount: $10 to $2,000 per top-up.
• Card: paid through Stripe Checkout.
• USDT: paid through a BTCPay Server invoice.

Credits are added once the processor confirms the payment. Card payments usually confirm within seconds; USDT takes as long as the transaction needs to confirm. Card numbers and wallets stay with the processors: we keep only amounts and the processors’ references.

Spending controls

• Per-key monthly caps. Give an API key a cap when you create it. It counts what that key’s tasks cost in the current calendar month (UTC), including tasks still running and leaving out refunded ones. A task that would go over the cap fails with 402 spend_cap_reached.
• Low-balance email. When a task succeeds and leaves your balance below your alert threshold ($2 unless you change it), we email you, at most once a day. Set the threshold on the console’s Overview page.

Invoices and statements

• Invoices. Every paid top-up has a PDF invoice. Download it from the payment history on the Billing page.
• Statements. A PDF for any calendar month, with your opening balance, every top-up, hold, charge and release, and your usage by model. Pick the month on the Billing page.

What happens to unused credit if you close your account is covered by the Terms of Service.