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Pay As You Go is the paid path for uneven or early internal usage. Use it after you have tested a representative request and want metered access without a fixed monthly fee.

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Confirm the account before enabling PAYG

Use the API key tied to the organization to read its current billing state and limits. The rate catalog is public and describes current rates rather than that account’s billing state:
The starter grant provides 150 included calls and does not renew automatically. The response, not a copied example, shows the account’s current billing state and available context.

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Enable the paid path

In the signed-in dashboard, choose Pay As You Go, save a card, make the initial credit top-up, and optionally configure auto top-up. The API endpoint for this control-plane action is POST /v1/billing/payg/enable; it requires the authorized signed-in session rather than an API key. Once payment is confirmed, the organization moves to payg_active. Until then, a billable request can return 402 billing_required with the account condition that needs attention.

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Meter and monitor real usage

PAYG uses prepaid credits. Read billing rates for the current catalog, and retain SECAPI-Meter-Class and SECAPI-Estimated-Cost when a response supplies them. For a repeated path, use a billing quote before the loop; it estimates the current request but does not reserve credits. Delivery work has its own meter families. Webhook and stream delivery use delivery_events; customer-configured monitor email recipients use email_notifications. If the account is budget-paused or lacks an active card or prepaid balance, paid delivery work is blocked rather than silently retried. Operational account emails do not use the monitor-email meter.

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Know the boundary

PAYG is for evaluation and internal use. It does not authorize redistribution, embedding, white-labeling, resale, or Bulk Factor Export. Read plans and pricing before shipping customer-facing output. Next, price a representative workload or set the preflight and stop rule in billing-aware agent runs.