# Usage & billing

Source: https://docs.littlebigbrain.com/start/billing/

Your plan page shows the prices you accept before subscribing, and the Billing
page shows what you are being charged. Existing subscriptions keep the prices
and schedule they accepted. Your billing country determines the account
currency; the EUR/USD control on the plan page is a preview.

Billing names your accepted plan and shows prepaid balance and credits as
deductions from usage. **Extra usage so far** is the amount above those
deductions, separate from the monthly minimum already paid. A legacy plan's
calendar-month usage table is labelled separately from its signup billing period.

Usage totals show when they were sampled. The page refreshes them in the
background and labels older totals while an update is in progress. On a first
visit, or when a billing period changes, you may briefly see **Preparing usage**;
the page checks again automatically. Once totals are available, they stay
visible with their sample time while an update is in progress, including if
that update is temporarily unavailable. Recent activity may still be processing.
Invoices remain the authority for final charges.

**Compare plans** loads plan details separately, so you can review plans and
continue payment setup while usage totals are being prepared.

New Cloud subscriptions use storage-only pricing. Existing resource and query-unit
subscriptions keep their accepted prices until an agreed plan change.

For a storage estimate, use the [pricing calculator](https://littlebigbrain.com/pricing/).
For the release history, see the [September 19 pricing update](https://docs.littlebigbrain.com/changelog/cloud/#19-september-storage-only-cloud-pricing).

Pro runs in the shared cloud and includes every feature: models, workflows,
evals, files and integrations. A [dedicated deployment](https://docs.littlebigbrain.com/guides/pro-deployments/)
is part of Enterprise. It runs in Europe, hosted by us, or in your own AWS,
Google Cloud or Azure account. In your own account, infrastructure charges
begin when you approve the launch plan there.

## Free plan

Choose **Start on Free** when you set up a workspace. It requires a verified
email and no card. Free includes one
environment and 30 GiB of data, indexes and retained history, with no expiry,
monthly query quota or automatic charges. One Free account is available per
verified user.

Free allows 300 requests per rolling minute across your account, graphs and
API keys. Reads and writes both count. Status checks do not count: job status,
graph activity, publication status, embedding progress and workflow status. There is no plan concurrency limit, and queries have a 10-second
deadline. A failed admitted query counts. Excess requests return
`429 free_query_rate_limited` and `Retry-After`. When the shared servers are
busy, a Free account keeps at least 4 requests running at once. Extra requests
then return `429 free_fair_share_busy` and use no query slot.
Search by meaning is included: embeddings, their managed model, and searches.
The vectors count toward the 30 GiB. Other managed models require Cloud.

Billing shows storage and query allowances. At full storage, growth pauses;
reads, exports and deletion remain available within query fair use. Physical
cleanup frees storage, so deleting data can take time to restore capacity.
Upgrade explicitly to Cloud when needed. Free stays active during checkout and
pending payment, and earlier Free usage is never billed.

**Billing → Compare plans** opens the plan page, which marks your current
plan. A workspace that never paid can start on Free only before it has an
environment.

## Switching from Cloud to Free

Choose **Switch to Free** on the plan page. The switch takes effect at the end
of the month you paid for. Cloud stays until then, and nothing is charged after
that date. You can undo the switch until one day before it. A paid month that
ends within a day makes the switch final at once.

Your workspace must fit Free first: one environment and at most 30 GiB of
stored data. The plan page names what is too much. A workspace on a
calendar-month plan (v2), or with an environment from before Free existed,
can contact hello@littlebigbrain.com to move. Unused credit ends with the paid
plan.

## Monthly Cloud subscription

Every current paid plan works the same way at signup. You pay the monthly minimum
upfront to finish signup. Available operator credit can cover that first
invoice; a card is still required even when the amount to collect is zero.

The same minimum renews monthly on your signup date. It covers that period's
usage, and usage above it is invoiced after the period ends. Unused prepaid
balance expires at renewal. There is no annual commitment.

Select **Add card and activate** when you have invoice credit, or **Subscribe
to Cloud** otherwise, and follow the Stripe payment page. Stripe collects the
card, billing address and tax information. The console never handles or stores
card details. Your workspace opens when the first invoice is settled by payment
or available operator credit; saving a card alone does not unlock it. If payment
needs another step, the signup screen links to the invoice and updates
automatically.

Metronome rates usage and creates invoices. Stripe calculates tax, collects
payment and provides receipts and payment management.

## Storage-only plan (v4)

New subscriptions use this plan. One thing is charged: the storage you keep.

All EUR amounts below include applicable VAT, including the storage rate and
the prepaid balance. USD amounts exclude applicable tax. The applicable rate
depends on your billing details; it is included within the advertised EUR
amount.

| Plan | Retained storage | Prepaid monthly minimum |
| --- | ---: | ---: |
| Cloud (EUR) | €0.45/GiB-month | €19 |
| Cloud (USD) | $0.49/GiB-month | $21 |
| Pro (EUR) | €0.54/GiB-month | €190 |
| Pro (USD) | $0.588/GiB-month | $210 |

One rate applies to every GiB-month. There are no tiers and no volume steps.
Pro pays 1.2 times the Cloud rate. Amounts are calculated at that exact rate
and rounded once on the invoice, so a fractional cent per GiB-month is never
rounded up before the total.

Storage includes indexes and history. It is integrated over time, with a
GiB-month equivalent to one GiB retained for 30 days, and it is summed across
all environments in your account for the billing period.

Queries, imports and index builds are included. They carry no charge, and they
do not draw down your monthly minimum.

[Search by meaning](https://docs.littlebigbrain.com/guides/search-by-meaning/) stores vectors, and they count as
storage like the rest of your graph: 7.3 KB to 7.8 KB per instance at 1,536
dimensions in two measured catalogs. **Billing** shows their size in each
environment's storage; hover the size to see each graph and embedding. They
cost what the rest of your storage costs, not an extra storage charge.

Pro enables all product features, including Models, workflows, integrations and
evals. Model usage costs the provider's base price **plus 10%**, and counts toward
the **same €190 / $210 monthly minimum as storage**. For example, €54 of storage
and €110 of model usage are covered by the €190 minimum. At €154 of storage
and €110 of model usage, the month's total is €264: €190 prepaid and €74 after
the period. Unused prepaid balance expires at renewal.

Base model prices are in USD. For EUR billing, the currency conversion is fixed
with the accepted Pro contract. Reported token usage includes input, output and
cache reads/writes at their respective base rates. Character estimates, budget
reservations and unpriced calls are not invoiced. Existing accepted contracts
keep their terms until an explicit plan change.

Cloud model usage retains its included monthly model budget. Queries, imports,
index builds, cache and object requests carry no separate charge on either plan.

Included work still has capacity limits: request size, execution deadlines,
rate limits, and concurrency controls can reject or defer work. Included does
not mean unlimited throughput; contact us if your workload needs dedicated capacity.

For example, a Cloud account in EUR keeping 30 GiB-month of data pays its €19
minimum, which covers €13.50 of storage. The same account keeping 100 GiB-month
pays €45: the €19 minimum plus €26 in arrears after the period closes.

Cloud and Pro are both self-service. Pro gives you every feature, at the rates
above. A new or Free workspace chooses it on the plan page; Free stays
until the upgrade is paid. On Cloud, select **Upgrade to Pro**: a new Pro billing month starts immediately.
Your card pays the full Pro minimum
now and monthly from today. The Cloud period ends immediately; unused Cloud
minimum is not refunded. Pro becomes active after payment is confirmed. Your
environments and data are kept. Enterprise is scoped with you.

## Resource plan (v3)

Existing v3 subscriptions retain these rates.

All EUR amounts below include applicable VAT, including the usage rates and
prepaid balance. USD amounts exclude applicable tax. For example, at 19% VAT,
the €90 payment consists of €75.63 net and €14.37 VAT.

| Meter | EUR | USD |
| --- | ---: | ---: |
| First 1,024 GiB-month of retained storage | €0.135/GiB-month | $0.15/GiB-month |
| Additional retained storage | €0.072/GiB-month | $0.08/GiB-month |
| Resource work | €0.27/hour | $0.30/hour |
| Prepaid monthly minimum | €90 | $100 |

Storage includes indexes and history. It is integrated over time, with a
GiB-month equivalent to one GiB retained for 30 days. Graduated tiers apply
once across all environments in your account and billing period.

For each query, import or index build, resource work is the greater of its
CPU-hours or attributable memory GiB-hours divided by two. Those amounts are
added across operations, preserving fractions until the charge is calculated.
Shared cache memory has no separate fee. There are no additional query-count
or object-request charges.

For example, one operation using one CPU-hour and another using four GiB-hours
of attributable memory contribute three resource hours in total. Comparing
the account's combined CPU and memory totals instead would undercount them.

## Query-unit plan (v2)

Existing v2 subscriptions retain these rates, excluding applicable tax:

| Meter | EUR | USD |
| --- | ---: | ---: |
| Storage | €0.35/GiB-month | $0.40/GiB-month |
| Query units | €1.50/million | $1.75/million |
| Monthly minimum | €90 | $100 |

Query units cover reads and writes using request shape, independent of cache
warmth. All environments share one account invoice and minimum. Existing
early accounts also retain their original calendar-month schedule;
prepaid subscriptions retain their signup-date schedule. Changing the plan
offered to new customers does not move an existing subscription or bill
historical usage retroactively.

## Spending limit

Active prepaid subscriptions can optionally set a spending limit in **Billing**.
It is off by default. The amount must cover your monthly minimum and applies to
recorded usage across all environments before credits and prepaid balance. EUR
limits include applicable VAT; USD limits exclude applicable tax.

The limit measures what your plan charges for. On the resource plan that is
storage and resource work together. On the storage-only plan it is storage,
because storage is the only thing billed.

Once recorded usage reaches the limit, new queries, imports and index builds
pause. Running work can finish, storage continues accruing, and recent usage may
still be processing, so the final bill can exceed the limit. This is a pause
control rather than a hard invoice ceiling. Data deletion stays available.

Raise or disable the limit to resume new work, or wait for the next billing
period. Changes take effect within five seconds; queued jobs retry their
admission shortly afterward. Only account owners and users with billing
management permission can change it.

## Billing, credits and payment recovery

Open **Billing** from the account menu at the bottom of the console sidebar.
It shows the current period, usage, prepaid minimum, available credit and
invoices. Storage-only subscriptions show one **Storage** table: what each
environment stores now, its search vectors, and what that size costs per month.
Resource subscriptions also show the work hours they are charged for.

If provider rating is delayed, the page identifies its local usage estimate. For
the prepaid plans it uses your signup billing period before prepaid balance and
credits; EUR estimates include applicable VAT and USD estimates exclude tax. The
v2 fallback uses the indicated calendar month and excludes tax. An estimate is
never a finalized invoice.

Some accounts receive operator credit with an expiry date. Add a card to activate
your workspace. The credit pays invoices first, including the monthly minimum
and extra usage; your card pays any remainder after credit is used or expires.
The plan page shows what is due at activation. Existing usage-only promotional
grants retain the terms shown on their plan.

Owners and users with billing management permission can use **Manage payment**
to update their card through Stripe; members can view account usage. After a
failed renewal payment, a seven-day grace period allows Stripe to retry.
Successful payment restores paid access. Data deletion remains available in
every payment state.

:::note[Staged availability]
If payment setup is not enabled for your account, signup remains pending until
the cohort is enabled and the subscription is confirmed. Account settings,
sign-out and workspace switching remain available. The plan you accept
determines your prices and schedule.
:::