How Credits Work
Credits are the currency of MultiCartAPI. Every item you scrape costs one credit. Your balance comes from two sources — a one-time signup grant and the quota that comes with each paid plan renewal. Knowing how they are counted helps you plan your usage and avoid unexpected pauses mid-collection.
Where credits come from
| Source | Amount | When granted | Resets? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Signup grant | 500 credits | Once, when your account is created | Never — one-time lifetime grant |
| Plan renewal quota | Varies by plan | On each successful billing payment | Yes — resets at every renewal |
Signup grant
When you register, your account receives 500 credits automatically. These credits
have no expiry date — period_end is left unset — and the monthly renewal cycle
never re-grants them. This design prevents repeated account creation from
generating free credits.
Plan renewal quota
When a payment for a paid plan completes, your balance is reset to that plan's full scrape quota and your used-credit counter is zeroed. The table below shows the quota per plan:
| Plan | Price (USD/mo) | Credits per cycle |
|---|---|---|
| Starter (free) | Free | 500 (one-time signup grant only, never refills) |
| Basic | $15 | 10,000 |
| Essential | $65 | 125,000 |
| Plus | $125 | 250,000 |
| Super | $250 | 500,000 |
| Prime | $500 | 1,000,000 |
| Ultra | $1,250 | 2,500,000 |
| Pro | $2,500 | 5,000,000 |
| Elite | Contact sales | 20,000,000 |
Starter plan never refills
The Starter plan's 500 credits are a one-time grant, not a monthly allowance. Once they are used, upgrading to a paid plan is the only way to get more credits.
How credits are consumed
Each scrape request passes through a consumption gate before any work begins. The gate checks whether your spendable balance can cover the cost:
- Cost: 1 credit per item scraped (one ASIN = one credit).
- Spendable balance: your total available credits minus any credits already used or reserved for in-flight jobs.
- If the balance is sufficient, 1 credit is reserved and the scrape proceeds.
- If the balance is insufficient, the request is rejected before it is queued. No credits are deducted and no job is started.
This check happens atomically, so concurrent scrapes never over-draw your balance.
View your current credit balanceCredit carry-over on plan changes
Upgrade
When you upgrade to a higher plan, any unused credits in your current balance are captured at the moment the new subscription is created. After the first payment on the new plan resets your counter to the new quota, those captured credits are added back on top. You do not lose unspent credits by upgrading.
Example: you have 3,000 credits remaining on Basic, then upgrade to Essential (125,000 quota). After the first Essential payment, your balance becomes 125,000 + 3,000 = 128,000.
Downgrade
When your downgrade takes effect at the next renewal, your existing balance is not reset — it carries into the new, lower-quota cycle. The renewal does not zero out credits when a plan change is pending.
Example: you have 20,000 credits remaining on Essential, then downgrade to Basic (10,000 quota) at renewal. Your opening balance for the new cycle is 20,000 (the carryover), not 10,000.
Cancellation spend-down
After cancelling, your current plan's access and remaining credits stay active until your billing period ends. When the period ends your account reverts to the Starter plan — no new credits are granted at that point.
Refund clawback
If a payment is refunded, the credits that were granted for that payment are clawed back. Only the credits from the refunded grant are reversed; credits you have already consumed or that are reserved for in-flight jobs are protected — the clawback can never push your balance below what you have already spent.
Refunds are processed by the payments team. If a refund is applied to your account
you will receive a notification and a REFUNDED status on the affected invoice.
Reset semantics at renewal
On each successful renewal payment:
available_creditsis set to the plan's full scrape quota.used_creditsis zeroed.- In-flight job reservations (
frozen_credits) are left untouched to protect jobs that are running at the moment of renewal. period_endis updated to the next billing date.
Credits unused at the end of a standard renewal cycle (same plan, no change) do not carry over — the counter resets to the plan quota. Only upgrade carry-over (described above) preserves the previous balance.
See Billing & Renewal for the full renewal timeline.
Checking your balance
Account & BillingThe Account & Billing page shows your current credit balance, how many credits you have used this cycle, and when the next reset is scheduled. The usage chart gives a day-by-day breakdown of scrape activity.