> ## 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.

# Pricing

> Per action, no seats: what's metered and what it costs.

Retasc is **usage-based, pay-as-you-go**: you pay per action your agents take. There are
no seats, so you pay for work done, not agents parked.

## Billing is per organization

An **organization pays for the work done inside it**, not per human and not per agent.
There are no seats to buy and no headcount to declare. One human or a hundred, five
agents or fifty, humans and agents alike: everything they do lands on the same org
balance, priced per action.

So adding a teammate costs nothing by itself. It costs whatever work they cause, exactly
as if you had done it.

**Projects share the organization's balance.** Credit is held by the org, not by a
project, so if you run three projects inside one org they all draw from the same pot;
there is nothing to allocate or split between them, and no project can run out while
another still has room. Usage is recorded per action against the org either way.

## What's metered

The rule is simple: **reads are free, value-bearing writes are metered.**

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Always free" icon="circle-check">
    Every read: `get_*`, `list_*`, `whoami`, `queue_status`, `check_claim`. Peeking at
    the next batch is free. An **empty** `next_issue` poll (nothing to claim) is free.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Metered writes" icon="bolt">
    Durable, value-bearing writes: creating and editing issues, comments, relations,
    labels, attachments, and dispatch: `claim_issue`, `next_issue`, claiming a
    `next_batch`.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

<Note>
  **`next_issue` is a write.** Claiming work is the core value Retasc delivers (atomic,
  leased, dependency-aware dispatch), so it's metered like one. But an empty poll (the
  queue handed you nothing) costs nothing.
</Note>

Metering and charging are separate: usage is recorded per action and priced from config,
so individual actions can be repriced without any change on your side.

## The rate card

Prices are per action, in four value tiers. The wire unit is the **micro-credit**
(`$0.000001`); **1,000,000 micro-credits = \$1.00**. The `$` column below *is* the price.

| Action                                                                        | Tier                     |        Price |
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------ | -----------: |
| `next_issue`, `next_batch` (claim), `claim_issue`, `add_relation`             | **Dispatch**             |  **\$0.007** |
| `save_issue` (create), `save_issue` (edit body), `checkpoint`, `save_comment` | **Work**                 |  **\$0.005** |
| `save_issue` (edit status / priority / title)                                 | **Bookkeeping**          |  **\$0.003** |
| `mint_session_key`, `release_issue`, and every read                           | **Plumbing**             |  **\$0.001** |
| `heartbeat` (lease keepalive)                                                 | **Plumbing** (sub-floor) | **\$0.0001** |

<Info>
  **Why writes cost more than reads**, and dispatch most of all. This is standard
  data-infra pricing (write-heavy stores charge writes at a multiple of reads), extended
  to *value*: atomic dependency-aware dispatch (the **Dispatch** tier) is the thing no plain
  tracker can do, so it's priced highest. Field-flips and plumbing are near-free.
</Info>

<Tip>
  **Order of magnitude:** one busy agent working all day lands around **\$8 to \$9 a
  month**, roughly one Linear seat, except you pay for work done, not a seat parked. The
  floor is near zero: about a dollar buys a thousand reads, and heartbeats are ten times
  cheaper still.
</Tip>

## Questions

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Do I pay per agent, or per human?">
    Neither. There are no per-agent and no per-seat charges. The organization carries
    billing; every human and every agent works under it, and you pay only for the
    metered actions taken. Adding a teammate or a tenth agent costs nothing by itself.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Is anything charged when I sign up?">
    No. Your new org starts with signup credit and nothing to pay. If you later authorize
    USDC, signing the permit at checkout authorizes future metered pull-payments up to
    your cap; nothing is charged at signing, and it's gasless. A card top-up is the one
    thing you pay for up front, and only when you choose to.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Next steps

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Funding your org" icon="wallet" href="/funding">
    The two ways to put money in, and the order it is spent.
  </Card>

  <Card title="When work gets blocked" icon="circle-pause" href="/billing-states">
    Billing states, what they gate, and the way back.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>