Developer Plan and Credits

The Developer plan is Featherless's usage-based plan: you choose a monthly credit amount (from $50/month) and API usage is billed per token against your balance. Context sizes up to 256K, the fastest response times, one included agent environment, and no model-size limit. Unused credits roll over and don't expire.

How Developer Plan Pricing Works

• Choose a monthly credit amount.

• That amount is added to your Featherless credit balance each billing cycle after payment succeeds.

• You can add a one-time credit top-up from the billing page without changing your monthly credit amount.

• Successful API requests reduce your balance.

• If your balance reaches zero or below, request-pricing API calls are blocked until more credits are available.

• Credits do not expire.

How Request Costs Are Calculated

• Only successful requests are charged.

• Request cost is based on the model used, input tokens, and output tokens.

• Formula: input tokens x input price + output tokens x output price.

• Prices are listed per 1M tokens.

How cached input pricing works

Some models have a lower "cached input" rate alongside their standard input rate. When a request reuses a long prompt prefix the platform has recently served — a long system prompt, running chat history, a shared document — eligible input tokens may be billed at the cached rate instead of the full input rate.

• It's automatic: no code changes, no cache parameters.

• Only sufficiently long repeated prefixes qualify (roughly 1,000+ tokens of exact prefix match). Short or novel prompts bill at the standard input rate.

• Each model's page shows its cached rate when it has one (example: GLM-5.3 — $1.40 input / $0.26 cached / $4.40 output per 1M tokens). A "–" means the model always bills at the standard input rate.

• For agentic and long-context workloads, cached input pricing can cut input costs substantially.

What each request costs

Every model's page shows its current prices — input, cached input where available, and output, per 1M tokens (per 1M characters for speech models): https://featherless.ai/models

Cost per request = input tokens × input price + output tokens × output price. Only successful requests are charged. Some low-volume niche models carry a pricing multiplier over their model class's base rate the model page always shows the effective price if you are on Developer Plan.

Live Balance And Recent Usage

• Your billing page shows your up-to-date live credit balance.

• Recent usage may take a short time to appear in detailed usage views.

• Usage activity shows spend, request count, input and output tokens, models used, and request-level details.

• The billing page also lets eligible request-pricing organizations add one-time credits using the saved billing method on file.

Low Balance And Out-Of-Credits Emails

• We send a low-balance email when your credit balance reaches $5.

• We send an out-of-credits email when your balance reaches zero or below.

• Alerts are sent to the organization billing email.

• Alert settings can be changed from your billing page.

Choosing A Monthly Credit Amount

• Start with the amount you expect to spend in a month.

• You can increase your monthly amount later if usage grows.

• If you are unsure, start with a smaller tier and monitor usage from the billing page.

• For high-volume usage, you can add one-time credits from the billing page or contact support for custom needs.

Changing Your Monthly Credit Amount

• Increasing your monthly credit amount takes effect immediately after successful payment.

• The upgrade is prorated for the remaining time in your current billing cycle.

• Your billing cycle date stays the same.

• Decreasing your monthly credit amount is scheduled for your next billing cycle.

Switching From A Chat Plan To Developer Plan

• Switching from a chat monthly plan to a Developer Plan changes your organization to credit-based billing.

• The change can take effect immediately after successful payment.

• You can only switch to a monthly credit amount that is the same as or higher than your current fixed-plan monthly amount.

• Switching from a fixed chat plan to a lower monthly credit amount is blocked.

• Any remaining value from your current billing period may be applied as prorated credit when you switch.

• Your billing cycle date stays the same where possible.

Switching From Developer Plan To A Chat Plan

• You can switch back to a fixed monthly chat plan.

• Unused credits stay on your organization and do not expire.

• Stored credits are only used while your organization is on request pricing.

Cancelling Developer Plan

• Cancelling stops future monthly credit top-ups.

• Existing credits remain available until used.

• Once your credit balance reaches zero or below, request-pricing API calls are blocked unless you restart request pricing or add more credits.

Refunds And Adjustments

• Refunds or account adjustments may reduce your credit balance.

• Contact support if you have questions about a balance change.