Billing, usage and limits

Each organization has one prepaid balance in US dollars, and DevSpec charges it for the work it does: Dev's replies, reading aloud, voice input, searches, indexing your code, and the checks it runs on your projects in the background. You add money when you choose, or let auto top-up do it within a monthly limit you set. You decide who can use Dev, reading aloud and voice input and how much each person may use, how much each project may spend, and when a project should pause.

Money lives in two places: Settings → Billing holds the balance, adding funds, your card and auto top-up; Settings → Usage & limits holds the limits and the Spend breakdown.

How DevSpec charges

DevSpec charges your organization's balance for each piece of work as it happens, in dollars. There's no minimum charge, so a small piece of work costs a small amount.

Every piece of work is charged in full. Work starts only while the balance is above $0, so the piece of work that uses up the last of the balance still finishes and is charged in full, and the balance can dip a little below $0. The next time funds are added, that amount is paid back first.

• No seats, no subscription, no plans or tiers. You don't pay per person, nothing renews, and no plan or tier gates any feature.
• Your card is charged only when you add funds, or when auto top-up runs. Everything else draws on the balance you've already added.
• Your balance never expires.
• Your agent's own model usage is billed by its provider, not by DevSpec. If you run Pi, Claude Code or Antigravity CLI, what it spends on its model goes to your subscription or API key with that provider. Only the work DevSpec does, such as searches your agent runs through DevSpec, is charged to your balance.

What you pay for

Everything comes out of the one balance. What differs is which limits it counts toward.

Dev, reading aloud and voice input. Dev's replies in a session, including the research helpers Dev starts, its web searches and page reads, and questions you ask privately; /catchup and /summary; explanations you ask Dev for; replies read aloud; and speech-to-text. These are the features each person can be switched on or off for, and they count toward that person's allowance.

Running your project. Everything else: indexing your code and documents and keeping search current; every search, whether you or a connected agent runs it; session titles; keeping each session's Still to Discuss list up to date; reviewing memories and documents for things that are out of date; finding the related work and decisions handed to Dev or your agent as it takes up or finishes work; reading your commits, deploys and migrations; tagging; and writing the Project pulse on a project's Overview. This never counts toward anyone's allowance, whoever started it.

Every charge, of either kind, counts toward its project's limit, if the project has one.

What the charges are called

On Settings → Billing → Transactions, every usage charge has one of four names, the same four lines Spend shows:

Everything that keeps a project running carries the same name, whichever piece of work it was. To see what one project, session or connected agent spent, use Spend on Settings → Usage & limits.

What's free

Some things never cost anything:

• Ask DevSpec, the help assistant in the ? menu, which answers questions about DevSpec itself.
• Posting to a session room. Posts for your team cost nothing; only Dev's replies are charged.
• A Dev reply you stop. If you stop Dev mid-reply, that reply isn't charged.
• The first full index of your organization's first repository. When you connect your first repository, indexing it the first time is on DevSpec.
• Saving a card, setting limits and looking at Spend. Nothing on Usage & limits spends money, and saving or changing a card makes no charge.

Your starting balance

• Your first organization starts with $15, added when you sign up, so you can try DevSpec before adding anything.
• If you signed up from a DevSpec invitation that came with money, that amount replaces the $15 rather than adding to it.
• Every organization you create after that starts at $0. It's ready as soon as someone adds funds. See Organizations, members and roles.
• The first full index of each organization's first repository is free.

During setup, Owners and Admins save a card. Nothing is charged when you save it.

Add funds and manage your card

Owners and Admins add funds from Settings → Billing → Add funds. While the organization is out of funds, the form is in the Balance panel instead.

1. Pick $20, $50 or $100, or enter any other whole-dollar amount from $5 to $50,000.
2. Select Add funds to go to checkout, run by Stripe, the payment provider.
3. Checkout asks for your billing address and accepts a tax ID. Tax may be added on top of your amount, and local currency options are shown.

The amount you chose, before tax, is what's added to your balance. Prices are in US dollars.

The Payment method panel on the same page shows the saved card's brand, last four digits and expiry. The card is used for adding funds and for auto top-up.

• Add a card saves a card through Stripe. Nothing is charged.
• Change opens Stripe's billing portal, where you update or remove the card.

Card details are held by Stripe. DevSpec never stores your full card number.

Auto top-up

Auto top-up keeps work moving without anyone watching the balance. Owners and Admins set it up in the Auto top-up panel on Settings → Billing, once a card is saved.

Turn on Top up automatically and set three dollar amounts:

• When the balance falls below: the level that triggers a top-up.
• Add: how much to add each time, from $5 to $50,000.
• Monthly limit: the most auto top-up may charge in a calendar month.

Until you change them, the amounts are below $5, add $25, at most $100 a month. The rule is read back to you as one sentence, for example "When the balance falls below $5, add $25. At most $100 a month." Select Save. Below the rule, This month shows how much of the monthly limit has been used, with the recent top-ups.

If a top-up can't be charged, auto top-up pauses and the panel says why: the card was declined, the bank asked for a confirmation an automatic payment can't give (add funds once by hand to confirm the card), there's no card, or a billing address is needed to work out tax. When a card is declined, Owners and Admins are emailed. Fix the problem, then select Save and turn back on.

See every transaction

Owners and Admins open Settings → Billing → Transactions to see every movement of the organization's balance.

Each row shows the Date, the Type, a Description and the Amount. The main types are:

• Usage: a charge for work, named as in the table above.
• Purchase: funds you added, by hand or by auto top-up.
• Starting balance: the $15 added to your first organization, described "Starting balance — on us".
• Invitation: money that came with a DevSpec invitation you accepted.
• Refund and Adjustment: money returned or corrected.

Filter by Type, and by date with From and To. Members don't see transactions; they see the balance on Settings → Billing.

Set limits on Usage & limits

Settings → Usage & limits is for Owners and Admins. Nothing on it spends money or charges your card: each number is the most that may be used, and the numbers don't add up to a bill.

People controls each person's use of Dev, reading aloud and voice input:

• Allowance for everyone: the most one person may use, Per month or week. Leave it empty for no per-person limit.
• For each person: a Dev switch, a Reading aloud switch, a Voice input switch, their own allowance (empty means they follow the allowance for everyone), and what they've used this period. All three are on for everyone until you switch them off, and each works on its own: someone can dictate with reading aloud off, or the other way round.

One allowance covers Dev, reading aloud and voice input together. Running your project never counts toward it: searches, recall, indexing and the checks DevSpec runs never reduce anyone's allowance, whoever started them.

Projects sets the most each project may use per period, including its background work. A project with no limit shows No limit. When a project reaches its limit, only that project pauses; other projects carry on.

An Owner or Admin can also Pause a project, for example while a client project is on hold, and Resume it later. Pausing stops only what costs money: the project's sessions, tasks and connected agents keep working. See When a project is paused.

Allowances and project limits count per calendar month, starting on the 1st, or per calendar week, starting on Monday, whichever Per is set to. Dates follow UTC.

A limit stops the next piece of work, not the one that reaches it: the request that takes someone to their allowance, or a project to its limit, finishes and is charged in full, so the amount used can end up slightly over the limit.

See where the money goes

Settings → Usage & limits → Spend shows Owners and Admins how the organization's balance is being used.

This month shows your Balance, what's been Spent so far, and Expected this month: what the whole month is heading for, as a range once there are two weeks of history. It's worked out from the last four weeks, weekday by weekday, so a quiet weekend doesn't read as a slowing project. Below that you see how long the balance lasts at the current rate, and your auto top-up rule with roughly when the next top-up would happen.

Then choose a period: Last 30 days, Last 90 days, a calendar month, or Custom range…. For that period you see the total, what changed against the period before, and spend:

• Where your money went: Asking Dev, Reading aloud, Voice input and Running your project
• By project
• By session, including what connected agents spent while in it

Every view is a different cut of the same spend, so nothing is counted twice.

When a project is paused

A project pauses for one of three reasons, and DevSpec always tells you which:

While a project is paused, nothing that costs money starts for it: Dev doesn't reply, reading aloud and voice input stop, and work such as indexing new commits and reviewing project knowledge waits. Search keeps working, matching the words you type rather than their meaning.

Everything else carries on: people can open the project, read and post in sessions, and manage tasks, and connected agents keep reading and writing through DevSpec.

When the pause ends, everything starts again on its own, with nothing else to do. Work that waited is brought up to date once, to how things are now, rather than every missed run being repeated.

What happens when your balance runs out

When the balance reaches $0 or goes just below it, every project in the organization pauses, as described in When a project is paused. For the next 30 days everyone can still open projects, read and post in sessions, and manage tasks, and connected agents keep working. The work that costs money stops:

• Dev stops replying, with the message "This project is billed to [your organization], whose balance has run out. Ask the organization's billing admin to add funds."
• Reading aloud and voice input stop, with a message that the organization is out of funds.
• Starting a conversation with Dev waits for funds. You can still open a room for your team or your own agent during the 30-day grace period.
• Background work pauses for every project, such as indexing new commits and reviewing project knowledge. Owners and Admins see what's waiting on Settings → Billing, under Work waiting for funds.

Add funds on Settings → Billing and everything starts again on its own. If the balance went a little below $0, the funds you add pay that back first, and the rest is your new balance. Turn on auto top-up to avoid running out.

After 30 days without funds

If the balance is still at or below $0 30 days after it ran out, the organization becomes read-only. Everyone can still sign in, read everything and export, but nothing can be created, changed or posted, by people or by connected agents. Anything that tries is told "This organization is read-only because its balance ran out on [the date]." Becoming read-only deletes nothing: your projects, sessions and work are all still there to read and export. Adding funds lifts read-only at once, with nothing else to do.

Only running out of funds leads to read-only. A project that reached its limit, or that an Owner or Admin paused, never becomes read-only, however long it stays paused.

How you're told

• A banner across the app. Everyone in the organization sees what is paused and why: the balance running out (with the date read-only would begin), read-only, or a project paused by an admin or at its spending limit. Owners and Admins also see a low balance and a project nearing its limit (at 80%), with a button to add funds or change the limit.
• Email and the notification bell, to Owners and Admins, once each time: when the balance runs out, 7 days and 1 day before the organization would become read-only, when a project nears its spending limit, and when a project is paused, by its limit or by an admin.
• Connected agents see a short notice on every DevSpec tool result while their project is paused or the organization is read-only, saying what is limited, why and who can change it, so they can tell you.

What happens when a limit is reached

Each limit on Settings → Usage & limits stops only what it covers, and the message says which limit it was:

• Your allowance used up. Dev, reading aloud and voice input stop for you: "Your allowance for this month is used up. It covers asking Dev, reading aloud and voice input, and starts again on [the first day of next month]. An admin of [your organization] can raise it under Settings → Usage & limits."
• A project's limit reached. The project pauses: Dev, reading aloud, voice input and that project's paid background work stop, with "This project has reached its monthly limit." Other projects carry on. Paused work is listed under Work paused by a project limit on Usage & limits, and starts again when the limit is raised or the period turns over.
• A project paused by an Owner or Admin. Dev, reading aloud, voice input and that project's background work stop, with "An organization admin has paused paid work in this project. They can resume it under Settings → Usage & limits."
• Dev, reading aloud or voice input switched off for you. You're told which, for example "Reading aloud is turned off for you.", and that an admin of your organization can turn it on under Settings → Usage & limits. The other two keep working.

Why you're charged when nobody is working

Your balance can go down on days nobody opens DevSpec, and that's expected.

• Storing your search index. Your project's search index of code and session transcripts is kept ready so Dev and your agents can search it. Storing it is charged daily, as part of Running your project.
• Background work that follows events. When someone pushes code or a deploy lands, DevSpec indexes the change and links commits and deploys to your work.
• Scheduled checks. DevSpec checks project knowledge for outdated information and new work against recorded decisions. Questions that need an answer appear on Review.

To see these charges, filter Transactions by Usage, or check Spend → Where your money went. To cap them for one project, set a limit under Settings → Usage & limits → Projects.

Low-balance warnings and the billing contact

When the balance falls below $5, DevSpec tells the organization's Owners and Admins in the notification bell and by email, at most once a week while it stays low. If no card is saved, the email asks for one so you can add funds. A failed payment or a failed automatic top-up is sent the same way. An Owner or Admin who doesn't want billing email can turn off Email for Billing in Settings → Notifications; a failed payment still appears in the bell. See Notifications and messages.

The Billing contact panel on Settings → Billing sets the Billing email: invoices, receipts and billing notices go to this address. Use it when someone other than the Owner, such as your finance team, should receive them.

The Billing admin badge on Settings → Billing marks you as someone who manages money for the organization. Every Owner and Admin is a billing admin.

Refunds and deleting an organization

Funds you add are generally non-refundable, except where the law requires otherwise. There's no subscription to cancel: to stop paying, don't add more funds and turn auto top-up off.

Deleting an organization forfeits its balance. When the Owner deletes an organization, its remaining balance is closed and not refunded; the confirmation shows the amount. Closing your account does the same for a workspace only you own, because that workspace is deleted with your account. See Organizations, members and roles.

For a question about a charge, contact support.