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Chat completions are billed in credits at per-token rates surfaced on each model row at GET /v1/models under the chat_pricing block. The rate is the caller’s effective rate — any per-team override is already applied. See the dedicated LLM pricing guide for the per-1K math and worked examples.

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What you pay for

Each chat completion is billed across up to three buckets, depending on the model: Customers can compute credits-per-1K by dividing credits_per_M by 1000. The response usage block reports each bucket and the rolled-up credits_charged:
credits_charged is the exact amount deducted from your team’s balance. Check it on every response — it’s the source of truth for the billing line.

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Hold-and-commit (credits are reserved before dispatch)

Submitting a chat completion places a hold on your team balance sized at (estimated_input_tokens × 1.10) + (max_tokens × output_rate). The hold ensures the request can’t run if you can’t afford the worst case. When the response completes:
  • Actuals come back in usage.
  • The hold is replaced by the actual credits_charged.
  • Any unused hold is released back to your balance.
If actuals exceed the hold (rare — the 10% input margin and max_tokens upper bound usually cover it), the overage is committed up to your team’s balance_negative_floor. The default floor is 0 — overages beyond that are absorbed by the platform and logged for follow-up. Enterprise contracts can set a per-team negative floor; contact support if your workload needs one.

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The pricing-version pin

Every chat completion snapshots the rate-card version at request time. breakdown.pricing_version on the response is the version that was applied. Admin can update chat-model rates between published Aurous-Version releases, but the price actually charged is whatever was in force when the request was created — not whatever the latest rates are at the moment you read the response.

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Mutability asymmetry vs. images and videos

Chat, embedding, image, and video rates are all mutable without an Aurous-Version bump. Admin can update any of them at any time; image rates are per-tier (size_tier) and DB-driven, video rates are per-model and DB-driven. The per-request charge is still deterministic in every case — each request snapshots the rate in force when it was created, and that snapshot is what you’re charged: Why: rates track provider tuning, new models, and per-model markup changes that don’t justify a new version pin every time. If you want the rate snapshot at the moment your client made a request, call GET /v1/models (chat, embedding, video) or POST /v1/images/estimate (images) immediately beforehand and store the relevant pricing block next to your request. The inferences.llm_pricing_version field on each completion row is the audit-trail proof that the rate you were quoted is the rate you paid.

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Estimating cost before dispatch

Two ways to budget:
  1. Hand math — multiply expected token counts by the per-million rates on /v1/models. The per-1K rate is chat_pricing.input.credits_per_M / 1000 (and likewise for output). See LLM pricing for the full formula.
  2. Run a dry call — submit the request with max_tokens: 1 and read usage.prompt_tokens from the response. The input cost is then (prompt_tokens / 1_000_000) × chat_pricing.input.credits_per_M. The 1-token output charge is negligible.
A typical short conversational turn on aurous-grow-2.0-pro lands around 0.2–0.4 credits. Long-context analytical turns with reasoning can push past 1 credit. The live /v1/models response carries the current per-model rates.

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Refunds and partial charges

The policy is: you pay for what was delivered.

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Idempotency and billing

For non-streamed requests, an Idempotency-Key replays the cached response — including the original credits_charged — for 24 hours. You will NOT be double-charged for a retried key. See Idempotency for the full semantics.

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Where to read rates

  • GET /v1/models — per-model chat_pricing / embedding_pricing (the caller’s effective rate, including any per-team override) plus capability metadata.
  • LLM pricing guide — per-1K math, examples, and the mutability story in long form.

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Common questions

Are cached prompts cheaper? Some providers cache stable prefixes and discount the input rate for cache hits. When a hit happens, the response usage will reflect the reduced charge on breakdown.input_credits; the platform handles cache accounting transparently. Can I see usage trends? Yes — GET /v1/usage aggregates credits by day/key/model. The dashboard’s usage tab visualizes the same data. What if I’m rate-limited? Token throughput is limited per team (TPM bucket). Hitting it returns 429 tpm_rate_limit_exceeded with Retry-After. The TPM is in addition to the per-minute request bucket (RPM); both apply.