Billing & Rate Limits

The Abigail API uses a credit-based billing system. You purchase credits, and usage is deducted in real-time based on token consumption. LLM usage is never blocked — only document exports are credit-gated.

How billing works

Purchase a credit package (or receive $25 welcome credits on signup)
Every API call that uses AI consumes tokens (input + output)
Token costs are deducted from your credit balance automatically
Every response includes balance headers so you can track spending

Token pricing

Service Type	Rate
Standard Input	$50.00 per 1M tokens
Standard Output	$200.00 per 1M tokens

A typical /analyze call processes ~2,000 input tokens and ~1,500 output tokens, costing approximately $0.40 per analysis.

Model multiplier

Your account has a model version setting (default 1.0x) that multiplies base token prices. Higher-capability models may have higher multipliers.

Credit packages

Package	Price	Credits	Bonus
Starter	$25	$25	—
Professional	$100	$100	+$10
Business	$500	$500	+$75
Enterprise	$2,000	$2,000	+$400

Custom amounts are also supported (1:1 credits, no bonus). New accounts receive $25 in welcome credits to get started.

Document export pricing

Document exports (DOCX downloads) are credit-gated — the API returns HTTP 402 if your balance is insufficient.

Document Type	Price
OA Response	$49.00
IDS	$9.00
Form	$5.00
Drawing	$5.00

Document exports are the only operations that block on insufficient credits. All LLM-based operations (analyze, examiner lookup) always complete regardless of balance.

What is free?

These operations are never billed:

GET /v1/openclaw/lookup/{app_number} — application metadata
GET /v1/openclaw/deadlines/{app_number} — response deadlines
GET /v1/openclaw/draft-roa/status/{job_id} — polling draft status
GET /v1/openclaw/download/{job_id} — downloading a completed DOCX (the draft submission is billed, not the download)

Usage tracking headers

Every response from authenticated endpoints includes these headers:

X-Credit-Balance: 142.50
X-Balance-Status: healthy
X-Usage-Requests-Today: 23
X-Usage-Requests-Hour: 5

Balance status thresholds

Status	Balance	Meaning
`healthy`	> $25	Normal operation
`low`	$10 --$ 25	Consider purchasing more credits
`very_low`	$5 --$ 10	Running low
`critical`	< $5	Nearly depleted

When balance is low or below, responses also include:

X-Purchase-Prompt: true
X-Purchase-Message: Your credit balance is low. Purchase more credits to continue using AI features.

Handling 402 responses

When a document export is blocked for insufficient credits:

{
  "error": true,
  "error_code": "insufficient_credits",
  "message": "Insufficient credits for OA Response export ($49.00 required).",
  "agent_suggestion": "The user needs to purchase more credits before exporting this document. Current balance is insufficient."
}

Your agent should inform the user to purchase credits and retry.

Rate limits

Tier	Rate	Burst
Free endpoints	60 requests/minute	10 requests/second
API key (authenticated)	120 requests/minute	20 requests/second

Rate limits are per API key (authenticated) or per IP (free endpoints).

Rate limit headers

X-RateLimit-Limit: 120
X-RateLimit-Remaining: 117
X-RateLimit-Reset: 1708732800

Handling 429 responses

import time
import httpx

def call_with_retry(url, headers, json_body, max_retries=3):
    for attempt in range(max_retries):
        resp = httpx.post(url, headers=headers, json=json_body)
        if resp.status_code == 429:
            wait = 2 ** attempt  # 1, 2, 4 seconds
            time.sleep(wait)
            continue
        return resp
    raise Exception("Rate limit exceeded after retries")

Getting Started

Concepts

Billing & Rate Limits

How billing works

Token pricing

Model multiplier

Credit packages

Document export pricing

What is free?

Usage tracking headers

Balance status thresholds

Handling 402 responses

Rate limits

Rate limit headers

Handling 429 responses

​How billing works

​Token pricing

​Model multiplier

​Credit packages

​Document export pricing

​What is free?

​Usage tracking headers

​Balance status thresholds

​Handling 402 responses

​Rate limits

​Rate limit headers

​Handling 429 responses

How billing works

Token pricing

Model multiplier

Credit packages

Document export pricing

What is free?

Usage tracking headers

Balance status thresholds

Handling 402 responses

Rate limits

Rate limit headers

Handling 429 responses