> Markdown version of https://authpi.com/docs/concepts/pricing/ — fetch the complete AuthPI docs index at https://authpi.com/llms.txt to discover all available pages.

# Pricing & Activity Billing

How AuthPI's activity-based pricing model works. Metered identity operations, infrastructure capacity, the platform fee, and the trial.

AuthPI has one plan. There's no tier that gates core identity primitives behind an upgrade. Every account gets the same authentication methods, MFA, organizations, webhooks, and API access from day one. What scales with your usage is the bill, computed from a small number of understandable dimensions: **metered identity activity**, **infrastructure capacity**, and a **flat platform fee**.

**Beta note:** billing enforcement is still rolling out. No account is being charged today. This page describes the rate card that applies once invoicing goes live, so you can plan ahead.

## The three components

### 1. Metered identity activity

Four dimensions, each with its own per-operation rate:

| Dimension | What it covers | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Human authentication | Sign-ins and MFA challenges by a human user | $0.50 per 10,000 operations |
| Machine authentication | Agent and service-credential authentication | $0.50 per 10,000 operations |
| API key verification | Each successful API key check | $0.20 per 10,000 operations |
| Identity lifecycle | Signups, invitations, membership changes | Free (currently rated $0) |

A **$1/month usage credit** is applied automatically before any activity charge. Small and moderate accounts often owe nothing here at all. Unused credit doesn't roll over.

**What does NOT count as activity:** reads, config changes (creating or updating issuers, clients, webhooks, auth methods, etc.), webhook deliveries and retries, audit-record fan-out, and failed operations. None of these multiply your bill. Only the four dimensions above are metered.

### 2. Infrastructure capacity

Billed for keeping a resource live, prorated by the day, not for the write that created it. Creating, updating, or deleting an issuer or a domain is always free; what's billed is *having* one.

| Resource | Included | Rate beyond included |
|---|---|---|
| Issuers | 2 | $2/month each |
| Custom domains | 0 | $5/month each |

### 3. Platform fee

A flat **$5/month**, independent of usage.

## The trial

Every account gets a **60-day trial** from creation. During the trial:

- Metered activity (all four dimensions above) is waived
- The platform fee is waived
- **Capacity is not waived**: issuers beyond the included 2 and any custom domains still bill during the trial, since that reflects real standing infrastructure cost rather than usage

After 60 days, the full rate card applies. There's no separate discounted tier to move to. Trial and standard billing use the same rate card, just with activity and the platform fee zeroed out during the trial window.

## Worked example

An account with 50,000 human logins, 10,000 machine logins, and 20,000 API key verifications in a month, running 3 issuers (1 beyond the included 2) and 1 custom domain:

```
Human authentication      50,000 × $0.00005   =  $2.50
Machine authentication    10,000 × $0.00005   =  $0.50
API key verification      20,000 × $0.00002   =  $0.40
Identity lifecycle        (any count)          =  $0.00
                                                 ────────
Metered subtotal                                 $3.40
Usage credit                                    −$1.00
                                                 ────────
Net activity                                     $2.40

1 extra issuer             1 × $2                $2.00
1 custom domain            1 × $5                $5.00
                                                 ────────
Capacity                                         $7.00

Platform fee                                     $5.00
                                                 ════════
Total                                           $14.40/month
```

During the trial, the same account would owe only the $7.00 capacity charge. Activity and the platform fee drop out.

## Rate versioning

Every statement records the `config_version` that rated it. If rates change in the future, past statements are never rewritten. You can always see which rate card applied to any historical period from your account's ledger.

## Reading your usage

Billing posture and running balance are inline on the account object (`GET /v1/accounts/:account_id`); the full ledger, including past statement lines, is available from `GET /v1/accounts/:account_id/credits/ledger`. See the [Core API Reference](/docs/reference/core-api/) for the full schema.

## Related reading

- [Issuers](/docs/concepts/issuers): the resource that anchors capacity billing
- [Core API Reference](/docs/reference/core-api/): full schema for accounts, credits, and ledger endpoints