Prepaid Credits for AI Agents: How They Work

Does an AI agent need a wallet to pay for APIs?

Usually not. An agent that pays for APIs, data and tools needs a balance it can spend under limits, not keys it must guard. With prepaid credits, the agent calls a tool, Locus Pro charges the quoted price and pays the provider, and the agent never holds funds or signing keys.

Locus Pro also pays the x402 sellers in its catalog on the agent’s behalf and charges the same credits. The agent gets per-call price ceilings and spend caps with no crypto, gas or chain to manage.

A wallet fits a different job: paying merchants or people outside a catalog, or holding funds on a chain. For that job, compare the platforms that offer agent wallets and cards.

• Agentic payment platforms compared
• What is x402?

How much is one credit worth?

By default, 1,000 credits equal one dollar, so an illustrative $0.0039 operation costs 3.9 credits. An enterprise workspace can pick its own denomination at setup. Changing the unit does not change the dollar cost.

Treat amounts as exact decimals when integrating. Accounting from a rounded display string loses precision across many calls. Use the charge and ledger values the service returns.

Does a paid plan include unlimited API usage?

No. A plan pays for its stated workspace features and an included monthly credit allowance, not unlimited upstream API usage. The pricing page lists the current Free, Plus, Enterprise, and Enterprise Plus plans, plus custom commercial options.

Included monthly credits expire at the end of the billing period and are spent before purchased credits. Purchased top-ups are separate. Existing subscriptions and signed agreements keep their terms until explicitly changed. Check the live plan and funding quote before you buy, not an old screenshot or a guide example.

When is a call charged, and when is it released?

Fixed-price calls charge a set amount. Response-priced calls reserve a maximum, capture measured usage, and release the rest. Other prices depend on tokens, pages, generated output, or a live upstream quote. If usage cannot be recorded after a response is delivered, the authorized maximum can stay charged.

An underfunded call returns HTTP 402 before execution. A non-streaming failure before success releases the reservation. A streaming request is captured when the provider accepts the stream, so a later disconnect can stay charged. Not every failed-looking request is free.

How do I fund credits and cap spending?

Personal accounts can add credits, set up supported auto-reload, and set account spending controls. An auto-reload limit caps replenishment. A spend cap stops new spending. A low-balance alert tells you, but it is not a hard limit.

Enterprise products can use the workspace pool for internal agents, allocate pool credits after collecting payment themselves, or let end users fund balances through Locus-hosted checkout. Pick the model before wiring customer attribution into your calls.