> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.tornadoapi.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Billing & Metering

> How billed volume is measured, with worked examples. Read this before running jobs at scale.

## Billed volume vs delivered volume

**Billed volume and delivered volume are not the same thing, and the gap can
exceed 100×.** Billed volume is the size of the **complete source file at
720p**, or the bytes that land in your storage — whichever is larger. Delivered
volume is only the second of those. You are billed on billed volume.

Why: a job gives you access to the whole source. Whether you keep all of it, a
10-second clip of it, or only its audio track does not change what the job
costs to serve — so it does not change what it bills.

**Rule, in one line:**

```
billed volume per job = max( delivered bytes, full source at 720p, 1 MB )
```

Three terms, and only three. **The quality you request does not raise the
bill on its own** — it only shows up through the bytes actually delivered. A
1080p or 4K request that downloads the whole file bills those real bytes; a
1080p request that only keeps a 10-second clip bills the 720p weight of the
source, exactly like a 360p one.

The **1 MB per-job minimum** is the third term: any job billing under 1 MB is
rounded up to 1 MB.

**Quick estimator** (real sizes vary with content; these bounds hold for
typical video):

| What you get                                            | Billed volume per hour of source |
| ------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------- |
| The 720p floor — any request that delivers less than it | ≈ 0.52 GB                        |
| A full 1080p download (billed on delivered bytes)       | ≈ 1 GB                           |
| A full 4K download (billed on delivered bytes)          | ≈ 4 GB                           |

A 10-minute source bills **at least ≈ 0.09 GB** — even if you request 10
seconds of it, at 360p, audio only.

Exceptions where billed = delivered, exactly: Spotify and social-media
sources, and live-stream recordings.

## Clipping bills the full source

`clip_start` / `clip_end` trim the output, not the bill. **A clip bills the
complete source video at 720p**, whatever quality it was cut from.

The arithmetic, explicitly:

```
Job:        10-second clip of a 2-hour video, 1080p
Delivered:  ≈ 4 MB          (the clip)
Billed:     ≈ 1.04 GB       (2 hours × ≈0.52 GB/hour at 720p)
Cost:       ≈ $1.04         (at $1.00/GB)

The bill is ~260× the delivered size. This is the rule working as designed,
not an error.
```

Cutting many clips from the same source multiplies this: **each job bills the
full source independently.** 10 clips from one 2-hour video = 10 × 1.04 GB =
10.4 GB billed, for a few MB delivered.

## The 720p metering floor

**We never meter below 720p.** Whatever you request, the billed volume of a
job is never less than the complete source at 720p:

* A **360p** request bills the source's **720p** volume.
* A **144p** request bills the source's **720p** volume.
* An **audio-only** request bills the source's **720p** volume. Yes — audio
  too. A 1-hour podcast episode delivered as a 55 MB m4a bills ≈ 0.52 GB.

Requesting **above** 720p does not raise the bill by itself — you pay for the
bytes you actually receive, and only when they exceed the 720p weight (a full
1080p or 4K download does; a clip cut from one does not). Requesting below it
never discounts.

The floor is negotiable on paid plans — [contact us](mailto:support@tornadoapi.io).

## Free allowance and trials

There are two distinct free tiers. Know which one you are on:

**Free trial (no card on file).** Metered on **billed volume**, not delivered
volume. When the limit is reached, jobs are refused — a **hard stop**. Trial
accounts are **never charged**: no card exists, no overage is possible.

**Pay-as-you-go free allowance: 100 GB** (one per organization, requires a
card at activation). Also metered on **billed volume**. Concretely: 100 GB of
allowance is **≈ 1,000 ten-minute videos at the 720p floor** — not 100 GB of
delivered files. When the allowance is exhausted, your account continues
without interruption and **billable usage begins immediately** at \$1.00/GB,
charged automatically to your card. If you want a hard stop instead,
stay on the trial or ask us to cap your account.

## Worked examples

All costs at **\$1.00 per GB of billed volume** (decimal GB, billed per MB,
rounded up to the next MB). This table is the contract — if your mental model
disagrees with a row, your bill will surprise you.

| # | Job                                     | Source          | Requested | Delivered | **Billed**     | Cost          |
| - | --------------------------------------- | --------------- | --------- | --------- | -------------- | ------------- |
| 1 | One 10-s clip                           | 2 h video       | 1080p     | ≈ 4 MB    | **≈ 1.04 GB**  | **≈ \$1.04**  |
| 2 | 70,000 × 15-s clips (chunking pipeline) | \~10-min videos | 360p      | ≈ 60 GB   | **≈ 7,300 GB** | **≈ \$7,300** |
| 3 | Audio-only (m4a)                        | 1 h podcast     | audio     | ≈ 55 MB   | **≈ 0.52 GB**  | **≈ \$0.52**  |
| 4 | Full video                              | 10 min          | 360p      | ≈ 30 MB   | **≈ 0.09 GB**  | **≈ \$0.09**  |
| 5 | Full video                              | 10 min          | 1080p     | ≈ 170 MB  | **≈ 0.17 GB**  | **≈ \$0.17**  |
| 6 | Full video                              | 2 h             | 4K        | ≈ 8 GB    | **≈ 8 GB**     | **≈ \$8.00**  |

Row 2 is a real incident, anonymized: a customer cut 70,000 short clips at
360p, received 60 GB of files, and accrued a ≈ \$7,500 bill — 125× the
delivered volume. Rows 1 and 2 are why this page exists. **If your workload
cuts clips at scale, estimate with rows 1–2, never with your delivered
bytes.**

Rows 5–6: at or above 720p with the full video delivered, billed ≈ delivered
— no surprise for whole-file workloads. Compare rows 1 and 6: both requested
high quality from a 2-hour source, but row 6 kept the whole file and pays for
it, while row 1 kept 10 seconds and pays the 720p floor.

## Reading your usage

Your dashboard's **Billing** page shows two numbers, side by side:

* **Data transferred** — delivered volume (what landed in your storage).
* **Billable usage** — billed volume (what you pay on). Always ≥ delivered.

Both update **when a job completes** (seconds, not hours). Dashboard pages
cache for up to **2 minutes** — that is the maximum lag between a completed
job and the number on screen. The daily chart buckets by **UTC calendar day**;
the current day fills in as jobs complete.

The per-key view on the **API Keys** page shows delivered volume with billed
volume alongside (`billed X GB`) whenever they differ.

If the two figures ever diverge from your own accounting by more than one
in-flight job, contact support with the job IDs — do not wait for the invoice.

## Usage alerts

You receive an email when your **billed** usage crosses **50 %**, **80 %**
and **100 %** of your trial, allowance, or plan volume. Alerts are on by
default for every account with a volume limit and are sent to your
organization owner's email address. Thresholds are checked every 5 minutes —
the maximum delay between crossing a threshold and the email.

The 100 % email states exactly what happens next for your account type: hard
stop (trial), automatic billing at \$1.00/GB (pay-as-you-go allowance), or
overage at your plan rate. If your volume limit changes, all thresholds
re-arm against the new limit.

## Plans, overage, and payment terms

**Pay-as-you-go:** $1.00 per GB of billed volume. No monthly fee, no volume
commitment. Evaluated **daily**; an invoice is issued when your unbilled
balance reaches $10, and in any event on the last day of each calendar month.
Each invoice is charged automatically to the card on file.

**Volume plans:** monthly tiers with included billed volume and lower per-GB
rates, from roughly \$0.10–0.15 per GB at multi-TB volume.

Overage on a plan is billed at your plan's per-GB rate, metered identically
to pay-as-you-go.

**Late payment:** if the automatic charge fails, we retry and notify you by
email. If payment still fails, your account is **suspended**

— jobs are refused until the balance is settled. We never debit beyond the
invoiced amount, and suspension never deletes your delivered files.

## Metering change policy

Any change to **how usage is metered** — the floor, the clipping rule, the
billed-volume definition, rounding — is:

1. announced by email to every affected account **at least 30 days before**
   it takes effect,
2. recorded in the public [changelog](https://docs.tornadoapi.io/changelog)
   with before/after examples,
3. **never retroactive**: usage already accrued is billed under the rules in
   force when it accrued.

Price changes (the per-GB rate) follow the same policy.