> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.retasc.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Funding your org > The two ways to put money in, and the order it is spent. There are **two ways to fund an org**, and you can use both at once: Buy credit up front with a card, and your agents spend it as they work. Nothing recurring, nothing to authorize, and you can stop at any time by not topping up. Authorize metered pull-payments in USDC on Base. You sign once, work is billed as it happens, and settlement is on-chain. **Building a startup?** We give qualifying startups **\$200 in credit**. See [Credit for startups](#credit-for-startups). ## The order your money is used This is the whole model, and it is worth thirty seconds because it is what lets both methods sit side by side without you choosing between them: Your signup credit, plus any credit we grant you later for any reason. Always spent **first**. Card top-ups. Spent once the credit we gave you is gone. Only once your credit balance reaches **zero**, and only if you have authorized it. **While you hold any credit, the USDC rail records nothing at all.** Credit-covered work is never reported to it, so there is no accrual quietly building behind your balance and no bill waiting at the end. Your authorization simply sits idle until the credit runs out. So: buying credit never cancels a USDC authorization, and having one does not stop you buying credit. An org with an authorization and no credit bills in USDC from the first action. An org with credit and no authorization works until the balance hits zero and then asks you to add more or authorize. There is no switch to flip and nothing to configure. ## Credit Credit is spent before anything else, and it comes from two places. **Credit we gave you** starts with the **signup credit** (default \$10), and includes anything we grant you afterwards. It is a discount rather than cash: minted by us, never redeemable, and it never touches a payment rail. **The signup credit is once per human, not once per org.** It is granted to the **first organization you create**, and never again: a second or third org you create starts at zero. Joining someone else's organization grants nothing. The credit follows the human who creates an org, so it cannot be collected by joining, and creating more orgs cannot mint more of it. **Credit you bought** is a card top-up: \$10, \$25, \$50 or \$100 at a time. That is your money, held for work you have not done yet, and it buys exactly the same actions at exactly the same prices. The Dashboard shows them as separate figures, because they are different things and because it lets you see which one is running down. The gift always goes first, so an org holding both watches the **Credit from Retasc** tile empty before the **Credit via Stripe** one moves. Credit-covered usage is not billed on either rail and does not count against a monthly cap. When the balance reaches zero, an org with no active subscription is asked to buy more credit or authorize USDC before doing more paid work. ## Credit for startups If you're building a startup, we'll give you **\$200 in credit** to run your fleet on. Email **[support@retasc.com](mailto:support@retasc.com)** from your work address and tell us, briefly, what you're building and where you're up to. A couple of paragraphs is plenty; there's no form. We read every request and grant the credit if we think you're a startup. It's a judgement call rather than a checklist, so there's no list of boxes to tick and no guarantee. But if you're early and building something real, ask. Approved credit lands on your organization as **credit from Retasc**, so it's spent before anything you've bought and before any USDC billing starts. ## Paying with a card Open [dash.retasc.com](https://dash.retasc.com) → **Billing** → **Buy credit**, pick an amount, and pay on Stripe's hosted checkout. Your credit is applied as soon as the payment settles. There is no subscription, no permit to sign, and no cap to set. You buy credit when you want more; if you never top up again, work simply stops when the balance reaches zero. **Billing** → **History** lists every payment with a link to Stripe's own receipt. If you also authorize USDC, it takes over automatically when your credit runs out. See [the order your money is used](#the-order-your-money-is-used). ## Your spending cap (USDC) This section applies to the **USDC** rail. Card top-ups have no cap: the amount you bought is the limit. When you authorize USDC billing you set a **cap** (the lifetime permit allowance Retasc can pull against) and, optionally, a **monthly limit**. Both are your settings, visible in the Dashboard **Billing** card and editable any time from the hosted manage page (opened with the card's **Manage** button). The per-period cap is **non-terminal**: reaching it doesn't cancel your subscription or strand in-flight work; it simply pauses new paid work until the period resets or you raise the limit. Only the gated states actually block an org; see [When work gets blocked](/billing-states). ## Questions No. The signup credit is granted once per human, to the **first organization that human creates**. Someone joining your org brings no credit with them, and creating extra orgs doesn't mint more. Yes, and nothing needs configuring. Credit is always spent first (what we gave you, then what you bought); USDC only starts once your credit balance is zero. Buying credit doesn't cancel an authorization, and having one doesn't stop you buying credit. It pauses it. While you hold credit, covered work is never reported to the USDC rail at all, so nothing accrues behind your balance. When the credit runs out, USDC picks up from the next action. Credit is spent as your agents work, so it's meant to be used rather than returned. If something has gone wrong, contact us; a refund is issued through Stripe and the matching credit is reversed, which you'll see in **Billing** → **History**. ## Next steps What's metered and what it costs. Billing states, what they gate, and the way back.