Billing

Managed Agents uses prepaid credits in US dollars. You buy credits for your tenant from the Billing screen, pay by card on Stripe’s secure pages, and download a receipt for every purchase.

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Read your balance

Open the Recursion console and click Billing in the sidebar. The top of the screen shows two tiles:

• Credit balance: the credit you have, in US dollars. Purchased credit doesn’t expire.
• Payment method: your default card’s brand, last four digits, and expiry, or No card.

When you manage billing, Launch session warns if your credit balance covers less than about an hour of the selected agent’s estimated cost, and says how many minutes it covers. The warning links to Buy credits. You can still launch. When the balance reaches zero, new work is refused and running sessions pause. See When credits run out.

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What sessions cost

Sessions are charged by the session hour, covering compute and model spend; see Pricing. Each session is charged to your credit balance for its whole session tree: the model calls, provider tools, and sandbox compute of the session and every subagent and teammate it started. Sessions shows that one cost in its Cost column and in each session’s header. With the API, read costUsd and costState on the session; see Usage and cost. Reading a session’s cost needs an organization role that can read sessions. Session costs can take up to an hour to settle, so the balance can trail the work. A sandbox can keep running after its session ends, until the environment’s idle stop, and that compute is charged too. A cost marked so far can still grow; once it is final, it won’t change unless you resume the session.

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Buy credits

Choose an amount, and pay with your saved card or on Stripe’s page. What success means: the purchase shows Paid in Purchases, and the credit appears in Credit balance within a few seconds. The balance updates only after Stripe confirms the payment, so it can trail the purchase briefly. Buying is safe to retry. If a purchase’s response is lost and you buy the same amount again, you get the same invoice rather than a second charge.

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Cancel an unpaid purchase

If you started a purchase that goes to Stripe’s page and you don’t want it, click Cancel purchase in the drawer before you open Stripe. After that, including when you close the Stripe tab without paying, open the purchase’s actions menu in Purchases and click Cancel purchase. An unpaid purchase is canceled automatically 24 hours after it was created. A purchase that was already charged can’t be canceled.

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Manage cards

Payments are card only. You enter card details on Stripe’s pages; the console never shows a card field.

• To add your first card, click Add card on the Payment method tile. The new card becomes the default.
• To change the default, remove, or add cards, click Manage cards on the Payment method tile.

Stripe opens in a new tab. When you come back, the console refreshes your card. If you remove the default card, your next purchase asks for a card on Stripe’s page.

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Track purchases and receipts

Purchases lists every purchase, newest first, with its date, credits, and status. A paid purchase has a Receipt link to its Stripe invoice.

Every purchase status

Status	Meaning
Pending	The purchase was started but not finished. Buy again, cancel it, or wait for it to be canceled.
Awaiting payment	Waiting for a card on Stripe’s page. Click Pay on Stripe, or cancel it.
Needs confirmation	Your bank asked for confirmation. Click Pay on Stripe to finish, or cancel it.
Processing	The card was charged. The credit arrives in a moment.
Paid	The credit was added. The receipt is available.
Declined	The card was declined on Stripe’s page. Nothing retries it. Cancel it, or wait for it to be canceled.
Canceled	Your saved card was declined, or the purchase was abandoned or canceled. Nothing was charged.

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When credits run out

When your credit balance reaches zero, new work can’t start until you buy credits:

• New sessions, and messages that start a new turn, are refused.
• Test setup is refused, because a setup test runs on compute like a session does. The Setup test panel says there are no credits and links to Buy credits. If you don’t manage billing, it asks you to get someone who does to add credits.
• A session that is already running, or a sleeping one that wakes on its own, pauses before its next model request, with stop_reason: out_of_credit. Requests already in flight complete and are charged, so the balance can end slightly below zero. A paused session keeps its sandbox until the environment’s idle stop, and that compute is billed too. Once your tenant has credit again, from a purchase, an auto-reload, a staff grant, or unlimited mode, a session paused in the last 72 hours continues on its own within about a minute, with its subagents, from where it stopped. Its transcript shows a message saying credit was added. Your tenant runs only as many of them at once as it may run sessions; the rest continue as others finish. A session bound to a Slack thread continues on your next reply there. To continue a session sooner, or one paused longer ago, send it a message.

Saving agents and environments uses no compute, so running out of credit never blocks it: Save and test setup saves the environment even when the test is refused. When the Credit balance tile says Unlimited, credit doesn’t limit new work, and the balance can read below zero.

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What can go wrong

The most common problems:

• Billing isn’t in the sidebar. Your tenant role isn’t billing, admin, owner, or primary owner. Ask an owner or admin to change your role.
• “The card was declined. Replace it in Stripe, then try again.” The bank declined the charge. Click Replace card below the message, add or choose another card on Stripe, then come back and buy again.
• Paid, but the balance hasn’t changed. The credit lands a few seconds after Stripe confirms payment. Wait, or come back to the tab to refresh.
• The balance kept dropping after a session ended. Session costs can take up to an hour to settle, and a sandbox’s compute is charged until the environment’s idle stop.

Every billing problem

Message or symptom	Cause	Fix
Billing isn’t in the sidebar	Your tenant role isn’t billing, admin, owner, or primary owner.	Ask an owner or admin to change your role.
”The card was declined. Replace it in Stripe, then try again.”	The bank declined the charge.	Click Replace card below the message, add or choose another card on Stripe, then come back and buy again.
”Something changed since your last try, such as the saved card. Buy again.”	The retry no longer matches the earlier attempt.	Buy the credits again to start a new purchase.
Buy credits is disabled	The screen is still loading your card.	Wait a moment, or refresh.
The amount field shows an error	The amount isn’t a whole number from 5 to 1,000.	Enter a whole-dollar amount in range.
Paid, but the balance hasn’t changed	The credit lands a few seconds after Stripe confirms payment.	Wait, or come back to the tab to refresh.
The balance kept dropping after a session ended	Session costs can take up to an hour to settle, and a sandbox’s compute is charged until the environment’s idle stop.	Wait for the session’s cost to read final. See Usage and cost.

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Limits

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Next steps