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

# Glade API Units and Billing: How Usage Is Calculated

> Glade API charges one unit per successful operation. Errors, rate limits, and auth failures are never charged. Learn how units work and estimate costs.

Glade API uses a simple unit-based billing model — one successful operation consumes one unit, regardless of interface (REST, GraphQL, or MCP) or whether the data came from a live provider or cache.

***

## What counts as a unit

Every successful operation deducts exactly one unit from your balance, no matter how many fields you request or which interface you use:

* **One successful REST call** = 1 unit
* **One successful GraphQL operation** = 1 unit
* **One successful MCP tool invocation** = 1 unit
* **Cache hits** = 1 unit (you receive the same product value, freshness is preserved)
* **Internal retries and provider fan-out** = 0 additional units (Glade API absorbs these transparently)

<Note>
  You are never charged for errors. Validation errors, auth failures, rate limits, quota failures, provider errors, and timeouts all consume zero units.
</Note>

***

## Plans

Glade API offers four plans. Hobby includes 100 units, Starter includes 2,000 units, and higher tiers include the quantities shown below.

| Plan | Price | Units included | Requests/min | Concurrent | Interfaces | Overage |
| - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| **Hobby** | \$0 | 100 | 30 | 2 | REST only | Hard cap (no overage) |
| **Starter** | \$15/month | 2,000 | 120 | 10 | REST + GraphQL + MCP | \$0.01/unit |
| **Pro 20K** | \$99/month | 20,000 | 600 | 50 | REST + GraphQL + MCP | \$0.008/unit |
| **Enterprise** | Custom | 1,000,000 | 1,200 | 100 | REST + GraphQL + MCP | Hard cap option available |

For current plan details, visit [gladeapi.com/pricing](https://gladeapi.com/pricing).

***

## Estimating your usage

Your monthly unit consumption depends on the number of operations you run and the number of marketplaces you query.

**Example:** If you fetch product details for 1,000 ASINs daily across 2 marketplaces, that is 2,000 units per day or approximately 60,000 units per month.

A few reference points to help you plan:

* The **Pro 20K** plan covers approximately 666 products per day if you fetch each ASIN from a single marketplace (20,000 units ÷ 30 days).
* If you query the same ASIN across two marketplaces, that halves your daily ASIN budget to \~333 products per day on Pro 20K.
* For workloads that mix product lookups, search queries, and offer checks, count each operation individually — they each consume one unit.

***

## Handling quota errors

When you exhaust your unit balance on a **Hobby** plan or any plan with a hard cap enabled, Glade API returns an HTTP `402` response. Your request is not fulfilled and no additional units are deducted.

```json theme={null}
{
  "success": false,
  "errors": [
    { "code": 7, "message": "Payment Required" }
  ]
}
```

To resolve a quota error:

* **Hobby plan:** Upgrade to Starter to unlock per-unit overage billing and eliminate the hard cap.
* **Starter or Pro:** Enable overage billing explicitly in the dashboard if you want requests to continue beyond included units. You can also set a monthly spend limit.
* **Enterprise:** Contact your account manager to adjust your quota or enable a hard cap for cost control.


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