Pricing
Pay for answers, not attempts.
A call costs credits only when it delivers one: a markdown read, or an extraction that cleared the quality bar. Failures and low scores cost nothing, and every response says what it cost, in credits.
Free plan · paid plans open from your dashboard
{
"qualityScore": 100,
"grounding": 1,
"credits": 1,
"latencyMs": 911,
"trace": [ … ]
}Historical quality, timing and charge from the recorded run. Replaying the sample costs 0 credits and does not fetch a fresh page. Live responses report their actual charge in metadata.credits.
Plans
Choose your allowance
Plans differ in credits, request rate and the work available for an extraction. Check the documented limits and service availability. Paid plans are open: sign in and upgrade from your billing dashboard.
| Compared | Free | Builder | Pro |
|---|---|---|---|
| no card Start with a free allowance | open For agents in production | open For larger extraction workloads | |
| Monthly price | $0 /month | $19 /month | $79 /month |
| Credits includedreset on the 1st | 200 a month | 10,000 a month | 40,000 a month |
| Beyond the allowanceper 1,000 credits, on by default up to a monthly limit | Not applicableCalls return PAGE_LIMIT_REACHED | $2 | $2 |
| Requests per minuteper account, shared across all its keys | 10 | 30 | 100 |
| Readers up tobase charge per answer; a page they cannot answer is refused at 0 credits | 1 credit | 3 credits | 15 credits |
| Cap per requestrendering surcharge included | 3 credits | 5 credits | 17 credits |
| Included |
|
|
|
| Start | Get a free key Free capacity is funded again each month from a shared pool, while that month's pool lasts. | Upgrade from your dashboard Sign in, then upgrade from your billing dashboard. Payments processed by Stripe. | Upgrade from your dashboard Sign in, then upgrade from your billing dashboard. Payments processed by Stripe. |
Volume above a paid plan's allowance is billed at $2 per 1,000 credits. New accounts start with a $20 monthly limit on that spend; requests stop at the limit rather than exceeding it, and it is shown in your dashboard.
Estimate a month
Result
- credits a month
- 2,000
- estimated plan
- Builder
- current pricing
- $19 / month
This estimate assumes the selected charge per accepted answer and eligible plan capacity. Actual source support and charges may differ. It does not reserve service capacity or guarantee that the estimated number of answers is available.
Credits
What one call costs
The response reports the charge for the accepted answer. A request may be refused within account and service limits.
| Call | Credits | In dollarsat $2 per 1,000 credits, the rate above a paid plan's allowance |
|---|---|---|
| Markdown read (contrie_read, format "markdown") | 1 | $0.002 |
| Accepted structured extraction — 1-credit result | 1 | $0.002 |
| Accepted structured extraction — 3-credit result | 3 | $0.006 |
| Accepted structured extraction — 8-credit result | 8 | $0.016 |
| Accepted structured extraction — 15-credit result | 15 | $0.03 |
| Search with results (contrie_search, curated index only) | 1 | $0.002 |
| Page rendered in a browser first (render: "auto" on a JavaScript shell, or "always") | 2 | $0.004 |
| Rejected structured extraction, inaccessible source or unavailable capacity | 0 | $0 |
Free usage is subject to allowance and available capacity.
Questions
Straight answers
Limits and error codes in detail: rate limits · errors · questions to hello@contrie.com.
- What exactly costs a credit?
- An answer. A markdown read is 1 credit. A structured extraction that passes validation and the quality threshold of 70 costs 1, 3, 8 or 15 credits depending on the work needed to deliver the answer, and the response tells you which in metadata.credits. Rejected structured extractions, a RENDER_REQUIRED refusal, a fetch failure or a rate-limited call costs 0.
- Why can extraction credits vary?
- Different sources and requests require different amounts of work. The response reports the actual customer credit charge. Source complexity does not guarantee that an answer will be available.
- Do I pay when no answer is accepted?
- No. Rejected structured extraction and failed acquisition charge zero answer credits. Asking for format "both" costs the same as the accepted extraction alone. A search that returns results costs 1 credit; a search with no results costs 0.
- What is charged today?
- The Free plan has no subscription fee. Builder and Pro are billed monthly by Stripe from your dashboard. Credits track completed work and your remaining allowance. Check your billing dashboard for your account's current plan and any existing subscription, and review the price before subscribing. A monthly credit reset does not guarantee service capacity.
- Does the monthly credit reset renew Free access?
- It resets your credits, and Free service capacity is funded again each calendar month (UTC) from a shared monthly pool. A month whose pool is already spent grants nothing further until the next one. Capacity can run out before credits do, so an account can have unused credits and still be unable to start a new request until the 1st. Check account status when connecting or after a capacity error.
- How do the rate limits work?
- Per account, shared across all its keys, per minute: 10 on Free, 30 on Builder, 100 on Pro. A rate-limited call returns RATE_LIMITED with a Retry-After header and costs 0 credits. Rate limits protect capacity; credits pay for answers. The two are independent.
- What happens when I run out of credits?
- Calls that would exceed your available credit limit return PAGE_LIMIT_REACHED (HTTP 429). Included credits reset on the 1st; service capacity is checked separately and may still limit access. Recorded sample URLs keep working without a key. On an active paid subscription, overage is on by default at $2 per 1,000 credits, up to its monthly spending limit ($20 unless raised); requests stop at that limit.