I was wondering how the credit purchase worked because I seem to have seen that the credits expire after a year
#prepaid
uncut basalt
calm ploverBOT
Hi @uncut basalt. I'm kapa.ai, your friendly support bot. I will try to answer your question by searching through the knowledge base. :wave:
Yes, you're correct. OpenAI operates on a prepaid billing system where users can pre-purchase credits for API usage. These credits are applied to your monthly invoice, meaning any API usage you incur will first be deducted from the prepaid credits. If your usage exceeds the credits you've purchased, you'll then be billed for the additional amount [^1^].
You can set up prepaid billing by going to your billing overview in your account settings and clicking "Start payment plan" or "Buy credits". The minimum purchase is $5, and the maximum purchase is currently $50, but OpenAI expects to increase this soon [^1^].
However, it's important to note that any purchased credits will expire after 1 year and they are non-refundable [^2^]. Also, OpenAI is unable to extend the expiration date of credit grants or purchased credits [^3^].
If you've consumed all your credits, your API requests will start returning an error letting you know you’ve hit your billing quota. You can return to the billing portal and use the “Add to balance” button to purchase additional credits [^2^].