# Credits and budgets

Estimate product-credit costs, cap paid research and inspect settled usage.

## Product credits belong to a workspace

Every member uses the same workspace balance. New accounts start at zero. Configured purchase options appear on Pricing and in workspace Billing. Product credits are distinct from a supplier’s credits or dollar charges.

Available credits exclude current holds. A research execution can reserve credits before the provider responds, then settle the actual charge or release the hold according to the service policy.

## Quote before running

Where the tool schema includes dry_run, set it to true to request an estimate without a paid provider call. Read the returned estimate and the schema’s description of max_credits before executing.

A quote is not research output. If the result is too expensive, reduce the input scope or stop. Do not invent findings from a quote or an empty result.

```
{ "keyword": "crm software", "dry_run": true }
```

## Inspect the final charge

Read response metadata for the estimate, final charge and cache information. Usage shows settled calls by date and tool. Billing confirmations arrive through verified payment events; returning from checkout alone does not add credits.

For an ambiguous request, inspect usage and the request identifier before retrying. Reuse the same supported idempotency key and arguments rather than creating another potentially billable execution.