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Billing FAQ

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Is there a free trial?

No separate trial. Every new organization receives 250 included calls. This grant is renewable monthly — the allowance resets at the start of each UTC calendar month while the org is on the sandbox grant (it is not a one-time allocation).

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What happens after the included calls run out?

The org moves to payg_pending_card. Billable routes require card attachment through POST /v1/billing/payg/activate.

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Can an agent bootstrap itself?

Not fully anonymously. A human operator creates a short-lived sponsor token with POST /v1/agent/bootstrap_tokens, then the agent exchanges it once through POST /v1/agent/bootstrap.

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Do I need a subscription to use the API?

No. PAYG is the default paid motion.

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Which plans include redistribution rights?

Commercial only.

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Where do I view invoices and payment methods?

Use the dashboard Billing page or POST /v1/billing/portal. The browser receives a Stripe Billing Portal URL; plan and payment state remain server-derived.

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How do I keep an agent from spending too much?

Use POST /v1/billing/quote before expensive loops and set org-level controls with PUT /v1/billing/budget. The server enforces hard-cap and approval-required thresholds at request time.

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What counts as an AI query?

The ai_queries monthly quota covers semantic intelligence and AI-graded routes. Today the quota counts:

• Every /v1/intelligence/* request (security, company, earnings preview, country report, footnotes query, portfolio, watchlist, query/poll)
• GET /v1/signals/dilution/enhanced (and any sub-paths)
• MCP tools/call requests for intelligence.query and signals.dilution.enhanced.get

When the chat surfaces (/v1/copilot/chat, /v1/filings/chat) ship, they will count as well. Other meter classes (filings reads, factor lookups, market data) do not consume ai_queries quota.

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What are the per-tier ai_queries limits?

Paid tiers no longer enforce a fixed monthly ai_queries cap. Intelligence routes are LLM-free at request time, so usage is bounded by your billing budget instead of a hard query count. Each paid org gets a default soft budget (alerts/approval at roughly 2× the base fee) and an abuse-protection hard cap (roughly 50× the base fee); both are overridable with PUT /v1/billing/budget. The sandbox grant keeps its 10-query monthly trial allocation.

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When does my AI query quota reset?

Calendar-month reset, in UTC. The SECAPI-AI-Quota-Reset response header carries the exact ISO timestamp (the first day of the next UTC month at 00:00:00Z).

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What happens when I exhaust my ai_queries quota?

Only the sandbox grant has a fixed ai_queries cap (its 10-query trial). When a capped org exhausts it, quota-counted REST routes return 429 Too Many Requests with code: "ai_query_quota_exceeded" and structured details (aiQueryQuotaLimit, aiQueryQuotaUsed, aiQueryQuotaRemaining, aiQueryQuotaResetAt, upgradeUrl, docsUrl). MCP quota exhaustion returns HTTP 429 with JSON-RPC error code -32005 and error.data.code: "ai_query_quota_exceeded". Inspect SECAPI-AI-Quota-* headers on every quota-counted response for proactive monitoring. Paid tiers are uncapped on ai_queries; instead, requests are bounded by your billing budget and surface 402 (billing_budget_approval_required at the soft ceiling, billing_budget_hard_cap_exceeded at the hard cap) rather than the 429 ai_query_quota_exceeded shape. During the post-launch grace window, 429s are suppressed and the response includes an SECAPI-AI-Quota-Grace-Until header so clients can program against the upcoming enforcement date.

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Can I see my current ai_queries usage?

GET /v1/billing includes a monthlyQuotas.ai_queries block: { limit, used, remaining, resetAt }. The same information is mirrored on every quota-counted response via SECAPI-AI-Quota-* headers.

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Is public account creation available?

Create your account at secapi.ai/signup: you authenticate through WorkOS, accept the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, then create API keys explicitly in the dashboard. Public self-serve signup is rolling out at launch; the signup page reflects current availability.

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Can an API key manage billing or create more keys?

No. API keys are machine credentials for data access. Creating/revoking keys, opening Stripe checkout or portal flows, changing budgets, updating dashboard settings, or requesting account deletion requires a WorkOS browser session with the required permissions.