How credits and billing work

Every successful caption fetch costs 1 credit. AI transcription is billed by audio duration, only on delivery. Failed requests cost nothing.

What counts as a credit

One credit is charged per successful caption fetch, regardless of how long the video or episode is. A four-hour lecture with a caption track costs the same single credit as a 30-second TikTok.

Sources with no caption track are handled by AI transcription, which is billed by length: 1 credit per started 5 minutes of audio, minimum 1, charged only when the transcript is delivered. A 10-minute video is 2 credits, an hour is 12, and the 4-hour cap is 48. You can avoid it entirely by sending mode: "captions", which fails instead of transcribing.

You are not charged when a request fails. If a video has no captions and cannot be transcribed, or a link points at something we cannot reach, the response costs nothing.

Cached responses

If someone has already fetched a caption transcript recently, we serve it from cache and it still costs 1 credit. AI transcription follows the duration-based billing described above. You get a much faster response, but caching is a speed optimisation, not a discount.

Free credits

Every account gets 50 free credits each month. They refresh monthly rather than being a one-time signup bonus, so you can keep using the API at low volume without a paid plan. Your key is waiting in the dashboard.

Plans

Basic, $5 a month, 1,000 credits. Pro, $15 a month, 7,500 credits. Mega, $45 a month, 35,000 credits. Scale, $229 a month, 250,000 credits. The current plans and what each includes are listed on the pricing page.

Need more within a month? Top-ups are priced at your plan's own per-1,000 rate: $5 on Basic, $2 on Pro, $1.30 on Mega, $0.92 on Scale, and $10 without a plan.

Upgrading or downgrading

An upgrade charges the full new-plan price and starts a fresh billing period. After successful payment, the full new monthly allowance is added to your unused credits, even if your balance is already above the normal renewal cap. Top-up credits are untouched. There is no time-based proration or refund of the old period.

For example, upgrading from Basic to monthly Pro costs $15 and adds 7,500 credits to what you have left. Your next renewal is one month after the upgrade. Ordinary renewals still use the 2x monthly-allowance rollover cap; annual plans still receive their allowance monthly rather than a year's credits upfront.

Downgrades and switches to a shorter billing interval take effect at the next renewal. Review the amount and renewal date in the billing portal before confirming a plan change.

Checking your balance

Call GET /api/v2/me, or use the get_credits tool if you are connected over MCP. Checking your balance is free and never costs a credit.