Pricing & Billing
What it costs, how billing works, and how to manage your balance.
Written By Philippe
Last updated 29 days ago
What You Pay For {#what-you-pay-for}
Every purchase on indie.money is for the output an agent produces when you run it — a finished result from the Builder's work product. You are not purchasing access to, and receive no rights in, any underlying model provider whose models the Builder chose to incorporate. No tokens, credentials, or model entitlements are transferred to you.
Pricing is set by each Builder and reflects the value of the result, not the cost of any individual input the agent consumes to produce it.
What It Costs {#cost}
Every run has up to two costs. They're separate and transparent.
Total Cost = Builder Fee + AI Costs
API Cost Note: When a Builder provides their own keys, some agents charge usage on top of the run price and some include it. The agent's listing tells you which: if it shows a price range, usage is charged on top up to that ceiling; a single price means usage is already included and only the run price is reserved. Pay-per-run calls add a flat $0.001 payment-processing fee on top; runs paid from a producer budget do not. Either way you see the maximum before you run, you are never billed above it, and anything held but unused comes back within minutes.
Bringing your own keys: you pay your provider directly for usage. Those charges are between you and the provider, so the maximum above does not cap them.
Example: Agent generates marketing copy.
- Builder: $0.10 + AI: $0.04 = $0.14 per run
- 100 runs = $14.00. Compare to a $50/month SaaS you'd barely use.
Choose higher-priced agents when your workflow needs heavier compute, because they get more compute per Code step from the default 5 seconds up to 300 seconds.
Your per-execution API budget {#api-budget}
For agents where buyers pay AI usage, each run reserves a per-execution API budget — the maximum you will pay for AI provider calls during that single run. The Builder sets this when they publish the agent. Your wallet authorizes up to: builder fee + per-execution API budget.
When AI usage is included in the agent's price: the buyer's balance reserves only the run price (plus the $0.001 fee on pay-per-run calls). The Builder's key safety limit is a private limit on their own keys — buyers never see it, and it never changes what they hold or pay.
If the run's actual API costs land below your budget, the unused portion is refunded automatically when the run settles (~5 min). If costs would exceed it, what happens depends on whose keys the agent uses — see "What happens when costs are high" below.
Three ways to pay {#payment-modes}
Each agent run is funded one of three ways. Producer or Builder chooses which mode is enabled per Agent; you (the buyer) pick one if more than one is available.
Add funds to your prepaid balance from the Balance tab in your dashboard. Withdraw anytime.
What happens when costs are high {#absorption}
Agents use one of three key sources for AI providers. Each has a different cost-overrun behavior:
The cost-overrun rule is set by the Builder when they publish the agent. Your run history shows which key source was used per call.
Free runs {#free-runs}{#scheduled-promo}
Every account gets 100 free runs a day, every day, with no end date. The counter resets at midnight UTC, and your dashboard shows how many are left today.
Runs you fund are free up to the daily limit. A scheduled Agent runs with no balance at all — turn it on and decide afterwards whether to fund it. A chat, Telegram or webhook Agent needs enough balance to cover one run's maximum cost: that amount is reserved for the run and handed straight back, so you're never actually charged.
What you get
- 100 free runs a day, refreshed daily at midnight UTC
- Covers every Agent you fund yourself — a scheduled Agent needs no balance; a chat, Telegram or webhook Agent needs one run's balance in reserve, never actually spent
- Shared across every Agent your account owns — spend them on one, or spread them
- Your dashboard shows how many free runs are left today; each run's detail page shows how many remained after it
- Past the daily limit, runs bill as normal until the next reset
What it doesn't cover
- Anything your Agent buys. Free runs cover running the Agent, not the services it calls. Connect your own accounts for those; Agents that rely on platform-provided keys keep billing as normal.
- Runs a buyer pays for. When someone else pays — per call, or from their prepaid balance — that isn't part of this, and you still earn the full amount.
When the daily free runs run out
The allowance is a discount, not a cap. Past the daily limit, runs simply continue at the Agent's usual price — your scheduled Agent draws on its Agent balance, your chat / webhook / Telegram Agent keeps drawing on the reserved pre-auth. Nothing pauses; the counter refills at midnight UTC. There is no campaign end, no 2,500 lifetime cap, and no need to Reactivate.
See Free Run Allowance for the full rules — what counts as a free run, day-bucket mechanics, and the platform-wide daily breaker.
Why was my Agent paused? {#agent-paused}
An agent can pause for five reasons. Each shows a distinct banner in your dashboard. All are non-destructive — your purchase and scheduled runs are preserved.
Agent balance too low {#agent-paused-balance}
Your service budget ran out. The agent can't reserve the next run's maximum cost. Top up your service budget, then click Reactivate.
Per-execution API budget exceeded {#agent-paused-ceiling}
A single API call cost more than the budget reserved for that run. Common when the Builder uses their own keys and the AI provider returned a larger-than-expected response. You pay nothing for the unfinished run. Top up your service budget, then Reactivate.
Worked example. Bob runs an agent with a $0.01 per-execution API budget. A call costs $0.05 using the Builder's own key. The run stops, Agent pauses, Bob pays nothing for the failed run. Bob tops up and reactivates.
Platform API overage exhausted budget {#agent-paused-overage}
You used platform-provided keys, and recovered API costs from your service budget pushed it negative. The platform keys covered the call ceiling per-run, but your accumulated overage debits drained the budget. Top up to cover the outstanding overage, then Reactivate.
Free promotional runs used up {#agent-paused-promo}
Removed. The lifetime 2,500 promo ended on 2026-10-01 and was replaced by the permanent 100/day allowance. Daily free runs never cause an Agent to pause; the counter simply refills at midnight UTC. See Free Run Allowance.
Manually paused {#agent-paused-manual}
You turned the agent off via the dashboard. No billing condition triggered this — it's a deliberate action. Click Reactivate to resume. Use this state to temporarily stop runs without losing the agent.
Worked example — Your prepaid balance. Charlie tops up his prepaid balance with $5 once. He runs his favorite weather agent 50 times that month at $0.10 per run — no signature popup each time, just instant runs. His prepaid balance drops to $0 after the 50th run; the Execute button shows "Top up to continue". He adds another $5 and keeps going.
How Billing Works {#billing}
TL;DR for agents where buyers pay AI usage: We hold the max, you pay the actual, excess is refunded automatically when the run settles (~5 min). You never pay for uncompleted work. When AI usage is included in the agent's price, only the run price plus platform fee is reserved.
The Cycle
What If a Run Fails?
Managing Your Balance {#balance}
You hold three separate balances, and topping up one does not fund another. Agent purchases and passes are paid in USDC directly from your wallet. Funding an agent balance credits that one agent's sponsored budget. Your prepaid balance — what your own runs draw from — is funded separately by depositing USDC to it, and you can withdraw it back to your wallet at any time for free (unspent run reservations are refunded automatically). The 10% conversion spread applies only when you cash Earnings out to USDC, not to prepaid deposits or refunds.
Where Your Balance Shows
Low Balance
When your balance is too low, the Execute button is disabled and a "Top Up" link appears. Purchase any agent or fund a budget with USDC to top up, then retry.
Cost Transparency {#breakdown}
Every run shows a complete breakdown in your run history.
Reading Your Receipt
If you brought your own API keys, those costs appear strikethrough — they're paid directly to the API provider, never billed through indie.money. The strikethrough shows what you saved.
If the agent called other agents (an agent-of-agents flow), expand Agent calls to see each sub-agent, the URL, and its individual breakdown.
Cost Components
Key promise: You never pay more than the authorized amount. Nothing is ever added on top of your authorized maximum.
Cost Protection: Every agent has a maximum API cost limit set by the Builder. If costs would exceed this limit, the run stops immediately. You only pay for completed work.
Platform API Overage & Funding Requirements {#overage}
When an agent uses platform-provided API keys (not your own), each run carries a potential overage charge. This is the maximum the platform might pay to the AI provider on your behalf for a single execution.
How It Works
Activation Gate
When you click Turn On, your service budget is checked against the funding requirement:
Why This Matters
Platform overage is charged per step, not per run. An agent with 3 platform-credentialed AI steps has 3× the potential overage of an agent with one. The funding requirement counts platform steps and multiplies by the highest per-call cap to guarantee the platform can cover worst-case costs.
Deactivation
If platform overage exhausts your service budget during a scheduled run, the agent is automatically deactivated with reason Platform API overage exhausted budget. Deposit funds and reactivate to resume.