Wallet and credit

Each organization has one wallet of Orca credit. Your balance is everything credited minus everything charged. Credit never expires.

What credit pays for

Charge	Price
Model tokens on an Orca credit model (`orca/openrouter/<id>`)	What OpenRouter charges for the call, plus OpenRouter’s 5.5% credit fee. Orca adds no markup. See models and provider keys.
Web searches on an Orca credit model	What OpenRouter charges for the search, plus the same fee. A search on your own provider key is billed by that provider.
Machine time past your plan’s included hours	Your plan’s hourly rate. See plans.

Tokens on your own provider key (<provider>/<id>) are billed by that provider. Orca charges nothing for them.

Where credit comes from

Signup credit. A new account starts with $20 of credit. It is given once per person: a second organization you create starts with none.
Credit packs. An admin buys a pack. Each pack’s processing fee is taken from the pack: today 6.5% of the price plus $0.50, so a$ 20 pack adds $18.20. The packs on sale, with the credit each adds and its fee, are listed on the dashboard’s Wallet page and by orca billing wallet.

Plans do not add credit. A plan’s included machine time is not a second balance.

Buy credit

You need the admin role.

Dashboard
CLI
API

Open Wallet. Under Credit packs, choose Buy on a pack. Pay in the Polar checkout. You come back to the Wallet, which shows “Credit added to your wallet.” once Polar confirms the payment.

orca billing wallet          # balance, plan, and the packs on sale
orca billing buy pack:2000   # opens the checkout for the $20 pack

curl --fail-with-body -X POST "$ORCA_ORIGIN/api/billing/checkout" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $ORCA_API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"offer": "pack:2000"}'
# {"url": "https://...polar...", "id": "..."}: open url to pay.
# GET /api/billing/checkouts/{id} reports the checkout's state until the credit lands.

ORCA_ORIGIN is https://api.orcapods.ai, without /v1. The offer is pack:<cents> for a pack, or plan:pro or plan:max for a plan.

When credit runs low

Orca pauses paid work when your balance is below $0.50, the minimum balance on every plan. Paid work is model calls and web searches on Orca credit, and managed sandboxes, including their included machine time.

A new message that needs paid work is refused with HTTP 429 insufficient_quota: “Out of Orca credit: add credit, then continue the session”.
A running turn that reaches the minimum ends failed with usage_limit_exceeded and param: "orca_credit". The conversation is saved. A managed sandbox is paused with its files kept.
Turns on your own provider key in a session without a sandbox keep working.

Nothing switches who pays on its own. To continue, add credit and send the message again (the dashboard’s Continue button sends “Continue”), or switch that session to your own key. The dashboard shows this as Out of Orca credit on the turn, with Add credit, Switch who pays, and Continue. GET /api/billing/wallet returns paid_work_paused: true while paid work is paused.

Read the wallet and your usage

Route	Returns
`GET /api/billing/wallet`	Balance, total credited and charged, the minimum balance, `paid_work_paused`, your plan and period, included and used machine time, the packs on sale, the processing fee, and OpenRouter’s fee (`openrouter_fee_bps`)
`GET /api/usage`	Totals per meter for a period (30 days by default, or `start` and `end` in Unix seconds), a daily series, and totals grouped by `model`, `provider`, `credential`, `session`, or `agent` with `group_by`. `session=<id>` narrows it to one session.
`GET /api/usage/events`	The newest usage rows, each with its cost. Filter with `meter`, page with `limit` and `after`.

Money is in micro-USD (millionths of a dollar). Every member can read the wallet and usage.

curl --fail-with-body "$ORCA_ORIGIN/api/usage?group_by=model" -H "Authorization: Bearer $ORCA_API_KEY"

In the dashboard, Usage shows the same figures by day, by model, and as a list of events. From the CLI, orca usage and orca usage events.

Moving from Orca 1.x

Balances and plans carried over to the new Orca. See bring your agents to the new Orca.

Start here

Build with Orca

Plans and billing

Operate your application

Wallet and credit

What credit pays for

Where credit comes from

Buy credit

When credit runs low

Read the wallet and your usage

Moving from Orca 1.x

​What credit pays for

​Where credit comes from

​Buy credit

​When credit runs low

​Read the wallet and your usage

​Moving from Orca 1.x

What credit pays for

Where credit comes from

Buy credit

When credit runs low

Read the wallet and your usage

Moving from Orca 1.x