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This is not vaporware documentation. The API and MCP server run in production today, serving the chat analyst every answer it gives. Public access opens in beta after launch: key minting and credit packs open with the beta. This page documents the live contract. Launch status tracks what is on today.
The API bills in data credits, and the unit is honest: one credit buys one delivered materialization, one unit of data that actually arrives in your response. You pay for what lands, not for what you asked for. This matters when the spender is an autonomous agent: machine spend needs metering a machine can trust.

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What one credit buys

Some outcomes cost nothing. All-refused results, top-level errors, 304 Not Modified responses, and transport failures are charged zero. A refusal is free because you did not get data; that is the refusal-before-fabrication rule showing up on your bill.

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Reserve, then settle

Before any upstream work, the gateway reserves the query’s maximum possible charge: the number of ids you sent (at most 10), one list materialization, or rank.limit (default 10, maximum 50). After delivery, it settles the actual delivered count and charges only that. Data is returned only after settlement succeeds, so the meter can never drift from reality. For example, a read with 10 IDs reserves 10 credits. If only 7 assets resolve, you are charged 7. The X-Credits-Charged response header reports the real, settled charge on every call. Your agent can audit its own spend without ever leaving the response.
Over HTTP you can re-poll a result for free with If-None-Match, which returns a 304 and costs zero. MCP has no conditional re-poll, so every MCP call is a fresh materialization and pays. Check usage instead of re-polling on MCP.

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What data credits are, and are not

Data credits fund the API and MCP only. They are a separate class from chat credits. Holder flow and trial credits fund the web chat and cannot pay for API calls. If your data-credit balance is zero, a paid call returns quota_exhausted before any work runs: fail-closed, never fail-into-debt. You buy data credits as a pack from the console; packs open with the API beta. Purchased credits expire one year after they are granted.