--- title: Credits and Packs: What Everything Costs and How to Get More description: What a Helious credit buys, what each plan includes, how one API call goes live for 5 credits when you are not on Pro, and the two ways on when you run low. source: Helious canonical: https://helious.io/help/credits --- # Credits and Packs: What Everything Costs and How to Get More One wallet pays for everything on your account. What a credit buys, what your plan includes, where to see your balance, and a pack or a plan when you run low. ## One wallet, three prices Every Helious account has one wallet of credits, and everything the account does spends from it. An API or MCP data call costs 1 credit. A typed Ask Helious question costs 10. On Free, Squawk and Starter the data arrives an hour behind, and one call answered live costs 5. Reading your balance, every error and every refusal cost nothing: you pay for data, never for being refused. ## What each plan includes Free includes 100 credits a month, Starter 1,500, Pro 3,000, and Ultimate has no cap. Plan credits come back each period: on your billing date on a paid plan, on the 1st of the month on Free. A new period sets the allowance rather than adding to what is left. On Free, 100 credits is 100 API calls an hour behind, or 20 live calls, or 10 typed questions, or a mix. ## Not on Pro? One call live for 5 Pro and Ultimate see everything live for 1 credit. On Free, Squawk and Starter every answer is an hour behind, and when one call has to be current you ask for it on the request: add ?fresh=1 to a REST address, or put "fresh": true in an MCP tool's arguments. That one call answers live for 5 credits; the next call without the flag is an hour behind again, for 1. With fewer than 5 credits left the live call is refused and nothing is charged. Worked examples are at [helious.io/usage](https://helious.io/usage). ## Where to see your balance In the terminal, under Account and then Subscription: the credits left, how many came from the plan and how many you bought, and the date the plan's credits reset. The Ask Helious drawer shows the balance under the composer. Over the API every charged answer carries X-Credits-Charged and X-Credits-Remaining headers, and GET /v1/me says what is left without spending a credit. ## Running low: a pack or a plan When the wallet runs low there are two ways on, and you choose. A pack is a one-off charge: 500 credits for USD 9.99 or 1,500 for USD 24.99, bought under Account, then Subscription, or from the Ask Helious drawer when it offers one. Bought credits never expire and are spent after your plan's, so a pack is never wasted. A plan gives more credits every month and changes how fresh the data is: Starter has 1,500 a month with live news, Pro 3,000 with everything live and the terminal, Ultimate no cap. Either lands on your account within a minute, and nothing about an API integration changes. Prices are on the [pricing page](https://helious.io/pricing). ## Which should I pick? Pick a pack when you need a few hundred more calls this month and the hour's delay is fine. Pick a plan when you run out most months, when you need the data live or the news live, or when you want the terminal. Many people do both: a plan for the month and a pack for a heavy week. ## What happens when you run out An API call is refused with HTTP 429 and the code out_of_credits, and nothing is charged. The body says how many credits are left, when the plan's credits come back, the packs with their prices and the links to buy. In the drawer, a typed question meets a card that says the same and shows the packs and the Pro button. Reading the terminal itself never costs credits. ## Questions ### Do bought credits expire? No. Credits from a pack never expire, and they are spent only after your plan's credits for the period are gone. ### Can a free account buy a pack? Yes. Every signed-in account can buy a pack, Free included, under Account, then Subscription. The credits land within a minute. ### Does a pack change how fresh the data is? No. Credits buy usage; your plan sets how fresh the data is. On Free a live API answer costs 5 credits with fresh=1, and Pro is live for 1. ### Why was I charged 5 credits for one call? The call carried fresh=1 (or fresh: true on an MCP tool) on a plan that runs an hour behind, so it was answered live. The answer says so: its citation line reads This is live data and meta.fresh is true. Leave the flag off and the call costs 1. ### Is there a daily cap? No daily cap on credits any more. Ultimate, which has no credit cap, has a fair-use limit of 100 typed Ask Helious questions a day.