Reference
Credits, pricing and receipts
What a request costs, what you're never charged for and how to check what you paid.
You pay Frames in credits: 1 credit is $0.001. Searching for data is free. You spend credits when data is pulled, and never for data that didn't arrive.
Plans#
| Plan | Price | Credits per month | Cap per request |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 3,000 | 1,000 credits ($1) |
| Starter | $19 a month | 10,000 | 1,000 credits ($1) |
| Pro | $49 a month | 30,000 | 3,000 credits ($3) |
| Ultra | $129 a month | 90,000 | 10,000 credits ($10) |
Every plan reaches the same tools and providers; plans differ only in credits and the cap per request. Free credits reset on the 1st of each month. You can compare and change plans on the pricing page.
What each path charges#
| You use | You're charged | Never more than |
|---|---|---|
| Search, probe and account tools | Nothing | |
Pulling data (frames_invoke_tools or POST /v1/tools/invoke) | Cost of the data that arrived, plus 15% | The request's cap |
Frames F1 (the API or frames_run_capability) | F1's model work plus the data, plus 15% on both | The request's cap |
The difference between the last two rows is who does the thinking. Over MCP your own AI plans and writes the calls, so only the data is billed. With F1, Frames' model does that work and it is billed too; see Frames F1.
How a request is billed#
- 1
Frames sets aside the request's budget from your balance.
- 2
It runs the request and checks every paid call.
- 3
It charges what was used and returns the rest to your balance.
What you're never charged for#
- Paid calls that return nothing, return an error, or fail the delivery check.
- Runs that fail.
- F1 runs that bought no data and ended without a useful answer.
Receipts#
Frames pays providers itself, in stablecoins on networks like Base, Solana and Tempo, so you never need a wallet. Each purchase gets a receipt:
| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
tool | The tool that was called |
amount, currency | What the provider was paid |
network, tx_hash | The payment network and its transaction |
delivered | Whether the data arrived and passed the check |
Paid results also carry a billing block: charged_credits, budget_credits, balance_credits and percent_remaining.
Limits#
| Limit | Value |
|---|---|
| Spending cap per request | Your plan's cap: 1,000 credits on Free and Starter, 3,000 on Pro, 10,000 on Ultra |
| Tools per invoke request | 10 |
| Tools per probe request | 5 |
| Search phrasings per request | 4 |
| Free probes | An hourly allowance per project, shared by MCP and the API. Search hits marked invoke_ready don't need a probe. |
| Request rate limits | Set per route. Past the limit, requests get a 429 error until you slow down. |