A Simpler, More Predictable Way to Pay: Pay-As-You-Go Credits

Building AI is hard enough. Paying for the compute to run it shouldn’t be.

Over the past year, we’ve spoken with thousands of developers, researchers, and small teams using Clarifai. We kept hearing the same two themes:

• Invoice-based users wanted more predictability and less “bill shock” at the end of the month.
• Prepaid users wanted more reliability and fewer concerns about accidentally running out of balance in the middle of an important job.

Both groups were telling us the same thing:
“Just give me a billing system that works the way I expect AI workloads to work—simple, predictable, and dependable.”

Today, we’re rolling out a new billing experience designed to do exactly that.

Why We’re Moving to Prepaid Credits

Our goal was straightforward: create a system that gives users total control over costs, easy access to most features, and the ability to scale without friction.

After researching how builders actually use the platform—not just how plans were “supposed” to work—it became clear that the old model (multiple plan tiers, invoice cycles, monthly minimums, and free quotas) created unnecessary complexity. Users often had to compare plans and commit upfront before they even knew which features or level of needed.

We wanted to fix that.

So we’re transitioning all self-serve users to a single, unified Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) model using prepaid credits.

What’s Changing

1. One Simple Pay-As-You-Go Plan

We’re retiring our legacy self-serve plans (Community, Developer, Essential, Professional) and replacing them with a single Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) plan.

What this means for you:

• No more monthly commitments—you pay only for what you use
• No more deciding between plan tiers to access feature
• Almost no feature gates—most of Clarifai is now accessible out of the box, including Compute Orchestration with auto-provisioned GPUs
• A clearer, more consistent experience for everyone

This shift aligns with our vision: let users try the platform freely, explore powerful capabilities, and only pay for what they actually use.

2. Prepaid Credits + Auto-Recharge = Predictability

With PAYG, you add credits upfront and use them across the platform—training, inference, workflows, Compute Orchestration, and more.

To ensure reliability, we’ve also introduced Auto-Recharge, which lets you:

• Set a minimum balance
  • For example: "When my balance drops below $20”
• Define the balance you want to restore to
  • For example: "Bring my balance back up to $100"

When your balance reaches the threshold, Clarifai automatically tops it up to your chosen amount—no manual intervention required.

This gives you the cost control of prepay with the peace of mind of recurring billing.

No more surprise invoices. No more stopping jobs because you forgot to top up.

3. Lower Bills for Many Users

If you were previously on a plan with a monthly minimum (like the $30 Essential plan), that minimum is now gone.

You’ll now pay only for the compute you actually use, with no minimum charges or fixed monthly commitments.

If you use $5 worth of tokens or GPU time this month, you pay $5—nothing more.

This brings our billing model closer to how developers actually build in 2025: bursts of experimentation, followed by periods of optimization and scaling.

A $5 Welcome Gift to Help You Get Started

To make the transition easier, we’re offering every verified user—new or existing—a one-time $5 welcome credit.

You can use it for almost anything on the platform:

• Spinning up a GPU in Compute Orchestration
• Deploying a model
• Running benchmarks
• Trying evaluation tools
• Exploring the latest models directly via the Playground or API

How to claim your $5 credit:

1. Log in
2. Click Claim Credit
3. Verify your phone number
4. Start building

Good to know:

• Welcome credits are promotional and expire 30 days after they're claimed
• Paid credits never expire

Why This Matters

This new billing model is built around a few core principles:

• Predictability
  No more guessing what your invoice will look like at the end of the month.
• Flexibility
  Try anything on the platform—especially powerful GPU-backed workloads—without choosing a plan first.
• Sustainability
  Moving away from recurring free quotas toward one-time welcome credits helps us maintain a high-quality platform and reinvest in features you rely on.
• Ease of use
  A single plan means fewer decisions and more building.

What You Need to Know

• New users: You’re automatically enrolled in the new PAYG plan.
• Existing self-serve users: You can switch to PAYG anytime, or we’ll automatically migrate your account in January
• Enterprise customers: No changes to your billing or feature access.

You'll continue to receive itemized billing records for your account. Charges occur when credits are purchased or topped up, and usage is deducted from your prepaid balance—so there's no end-of-month invoice for usage.

We’re Listening

This change is the result of months of user research, testing, and feedback from our community. And we’re not done.

If you have thoughts—good or bad—we’d love to hear them:
Join our Discord, reach out to the team, or contact support with suggestions.

Your input directly shapes how we build Clarifai.

Go Build Something Amazing

Log in and claim your $5 credit:
http://clarifai.com/login