Developer and Credits
How prepaid credits work for Developer API billing.
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 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.
Live Balance And Recent Usage
Your billing page shows your up-to-date live credit balance.
You can also read the same live balance and usage activity as the billing page with an organization Admin API key. See the /credits API reference and the /usage/activity API reference.
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 takes effect immediately and is not prorated; the lower amount is billed at your next billing cycle.
Switching From A Chat Plan To Developer
Switching from a chat monthly plan to Developer changes your organization to credit-based billing.
The change can take effect immediately after successful payment.
You can switch to any monthly credit amount, whether higher or lower than your current plan's monthly price.
Switching does not prorate: the unused portion of your current fixed-plan period is not credited or refunded, and you start a fresh credit billing cycle.
Your billing cycle date stays the same where possible.
Switching From Developer 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
Cancelling takes effect at the end of your current billing period: monthly credit top-ups stop and your organization then moves to the free Developer base.
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.