Credits
How prepaid credits work. You top up a balance and usage draws it down.
Planned for the self-serve launch
Self-serve billing is not live yet: card top-ups run in test mode only and usage is not yet charged to the balance. This page describes how it is built to work. The console's Billing page already shows your balance, credit blocks and history. Enterprise customers are invoiced under contract.
Usage is paid from a prepaid balance. You buy credits with a one-time top-up, or let auto-recharge top up for you, and each request draws from the balance at the model's price. Usage itself is never charged to a card: only top-ups are.
Top-ups
- The minimum top-up is 500 INR or 5 USD, before GST. Indian customers must complete Billing → Tax first.
- Retrying a checkout for the same amount reuses its payment order.
- Payments are taken by a payment provider (Razorpay); we never see or store card details.
- Credits are in your organisation's currency and can be used on any model.
Credit blocks
Your balance is made of blocks, each with a source and an optional expiry:
| Source | Expiry |
|---|---|
| Paid top-up | Does not expire today. A future expiry is a legal and accounting decision that is still open. |
| Promo codes | 1 to 180 days after you redeem the code (30 days unless the code says otherwise) |
| Grants and bonuses | The expiry set when the credit is granted |
| Contract credits | As the contract says |
When you make a request, blocks are used in order: by priority, then soonest expiry first, then oldest. Promotional and bonus credit is used first, then grants, then contract credit, and paid credit last.
Free credit
A new organisation starts with a balance of zero; there is no automatic free credit. When Sieve grants promotional credit, it appears as its own entry with its expiry date and is used before paid credit.
Running out
Each request reserves its exact cost before it runs (the cost is known from the input tokens), and the reservation is settled when it finishes. Usage therefore cannot take the balance below zero. If the balance cannot cover a request, the API answers 429 with insufficient_quota and no retry-after. Add credit and try again; a new top-up is seen within a few seconds.
The balance can go below zero only after a card dispute is lost. While a card dispute is open, and after it is lost, the account is frozen and requests are refused. A frozen account is not unfrozen automatically, even when the dispute is decided in your favour: our team unfreezes it after checking, with a second person approving. Write to support@sthanika.ai to ask.
Spending limits
Per-key spend limits are not available yet; your prepaid balance always caps total spend. The console's Limits page labels each control Alert (we tell you) or Hard stop (requests are refused).
Low-balance alert
On Billing, an admin can set a balance level. When the available balance (credit minus requests in flight and pending usage charges) drops below it, every admin gets one email and a notification. You get it once per drop: the alert re-arms when the balance is back at or above the level. It works for INR and USD wallets.
Auto-recharge
The pre-debit notice window starts when an admin email is actually delivered. Automatic debits wait while notice delivery or the live balance is unavailable.
Auto-recharge tops up the balance from a saved payment mandate when it runs low. It is for INR wallets only, because recurring payments in India (UPI Autopay, Indian cards, bank e-mandates through Razorpay) are INR-only. Like all self-serve payments today, it runs in test mode.
An admin turns it on under Billing → Auto-recharge:
| Setting | What it means |
|---|---|
| Recharge when balance is below | The available balance that starts a top-up. At least ₹100, and lower than the recharge amount. |
| Recharge amount | Credit added each time, before GST (at least ₹500). 18 percent GST is added to the debit, as for any top-up. |
| Monthly limit | The most auto-recharge credit in one calendar month (India time). At least the recharge amount. When it is reached, auto-recharge waits until the 1st and you get a notification. |
| Pay with | UPI Autopay or card: each debit can be at most ₹15,000 including GST (so at most ₹12,711 of credit), the limit up to which Indian rules let a mandate debit you without asking each time. Bank e-mandate (netbanking or debit card, eNACH): up to ₹1,00,000 per debit. |
You then read and accept the mandate terms and approve the mandate once in Razorpay's window, with your bank or UPI app. Cards and UPI take a ₹1 verification charge that is refunded; e-mandates can take a few days for the bank to confirm, and the status shows Mandate pending until then.
What happens when the balance falls below your level:
- Notice. Every admin gets an email at least 24 hours before the debit with the amount, the date and the mandate. To skip that debit, turn auto-recharge off before then. Your bank or UPI app may send its own notice too.
- Debit. After the notice period we debit the mandate for the recharge amount plus GST. If you topped up by hand in the meantime and the balance is back above your level, nothing is debited.
- Credit. The credit appears once the payment provider confirms the payment, with a tax invoice, exactly as for a manual top-up. Admins get an email. The payment is tagged auto in Billing history.
- Failures. If a debit fails, we retry up to two more times, each after a new notice. If all three fail, auto-recharge is paused, admins are emailed and our team is alerted. Fix the payment method and turn it back on.
Because of the notice period, and because some banks take up to a day more, set the level high enough to cover about two days of usage. Each debit is made at most once: a debit is tied to one top-up order and one try, so a retry or a server restart can never charge you twice.
You can change the amounts, turn auto-recharge off, or Cancel mandate at any time (it is cancelled with your bank as well). You can also cancel the mandate in your UPI app or with your bank; we then stop and tell you. Sieve staff can pause auto-recharge for an organisation, for example while a payment issue is investigated; you see Paused by Sieve and support can turn it back on.
Refunds
Only unused paid credit can be refunded, and only to the original payment source. Credit that came from a promotion or bonus on the same top-up is removed. Credits are non-transferable between organisations and cannot be cashed out. The Master Customer Agreement sets out when refunds apply. To ask for one, write to support@sthanika.ai.
If the payment provider can't complete a refund, no money is returned: we put the credit back in your wallet automatically and email every Admin. Reply to that email if you still want the refund.
Next steps
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