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Credits System

How prepaid credits are purchased, settled, and charged across Cencori models and endpoints.

Overview

Cencori uses an organization-level prepaid wallet for AI usage.

  • 1 credit = $1 USD.
  • Credits are held at the organization level (not per project).
  • Successful managed-key AI requests deduct usage from your org balance (except contracted Enterprise or explicitly sponsored usage).
  • Free, Pro, and Team organizations need prepaid credits for managed-key AI calls.

Billing Model

Cencori billing has two layers:

  1. Plan tier (Free / Pro / Team / Enterprise) for platform entitlements.
  2. Credits wallet for usage-based AI charging.

Credits and plan tier work together. Requests are never capped by count on any plan; a paid org is refused only when:

  • spend cap is reached, or
  • credits are exhausted.

See Billing & Usage for plan and spend controls.

Top-Up Flow

When a user recharges:

  1. They select a credit pack in Billing (Starter, Growth, Scale by default).
  2. Checkout is created.
  3. On successful payment, Cencori credits the organization wallet.
  4. A topup transaction is written to the transaction history.

Wallet credits are dollar-denominated. The default credit packs cost $10, $50, and $200. Card top-ups add 94.5% of the pack price to the wallet after a 5.5% fee; crypto top-ups add 93.5% after a 6.5% fee. The exact wallet amount is shown before checkout. Checkout tax or provider fees may change the payment total without multiplying wallet credits.

Usage Charging

For each successful managed-key request:

  1. Cencori computes provider cost from model pricing and token/image/audio usage.
  2. The provider cost is logged as the Cencori usage charge; no gateway markup or per-request platform fee is added.
  3. Final charge is logged.
  4. Credits are deducted from org balance.
  5. A usage transaction is written with a reference to the request log.

Formula:

managed: provider_cost = total_charge
BYOK: total_charge = 0

Example

Request:

  • Model: gpt-5.1
  • Input tokens: 1,000
  • Output tokens: 500

If the final calculated charge is 0.0245 credits, then:

  • Your organization balance decreases by 0.0245.
  • A usage record of -0.0245 is added to your transaction history.

Enforcement Behavior

Free, Pro, and Team managed-key inference requires a positive credit balance before execution. A request with a provable active project BYOK key can proceed at zero balance; ambiguous or multi-provider requests may still require credits until their key source can be established. Control-plane reads and cancellation do not consume AI credits.

  • If balance is exhausted, API returns 403 with a credit exhaustion message.
  • Recharge and retry to continue.

Managed Keys vs BYOK

Credits do not force BYOK. You can run either mode:

ModeWho pays provider billHow usage is charged in Cencori
Managed keysCencoriOrg credits are deducted
BYOKYour org directly with providerProvider cost is logged; no Cencori usage credits are deducted

See Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) for setup and tradeoffs.

Monitoring Credits

You can track credits in:

  • Dashboard navbar: compact live credit pill.
  • Billing page: current balance + recent credit transactions + recharge controls.
  • Usage and Logs: request-level cost and token visibility.

Recommended Operator Checklist

If you operate your own Cencori deployment:

  1. Configure Bachs credit products (starter, growth, scale) with the listed dollar face values, or enable CoinCircuit checkout.
  2. Set signed webhooks and subscribe to Bachs collection.succeeded or CoinCircuit payment.completed.
  3. Ensure provider keys are configured for managed mode.
  4. Keep model pricing data current for accurate charging.
  5. Set spend caps and monitor low-balance orgs.

Troubleshooting

Payment succeeded but credits not added

  • Verify webhook endpoint is reachable and signed correctly.
  • Confirm the corresponding payment-success webhook is enabled and the atomic top-up migration is applied.
  • Check webhook logs for org resolution and metadata (purchase_type=credits_topup).

Credits not deducted on requests

  • Check whether endpoint is routed through billing middleware/charged path.
  • Confirm request reached a successful completion path.
  • Verify request log contains charge greater than 0.

Credit balance exhausted errors

  • Recharge org wallet.
  • Confirm you are in the intended organization/project context.
  • Verify tier gating policy for your environment.

FAQ

Are credits shared between organizations?

No. Each organization has an isolated wallet.

Can I use all models after top-up?

You can use models available in your Cencori catalog and configured provider access path (managed keys or BYOK).

Is auto-recharge available?

Not by default in current core flow. Top-up is explicit through billing checkout.

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