---
title: Billing & Plans
description: Understand APIFold's pricing tiers, usage metering, and billing management.
---

APIFold offers four plans to match your needs — from free hobby projects to enterprise deployments.

## Plan Tiers

| Feature | Free | Starter (€9/mo) | Pro (€29/mo) | Enterprise |
|---------|------|------------------|--------------|------------|
| MCP Servers | 2 | 10 | Unlimited | Custom |
| Requests/month | 1,000 | 50,000 | 500,000 | Custom |
| Log Retention | 7 days | 30 days | 90 days | Custom |
| Support | Community | Email | Priority | Dedicated |
| Overage | Hard cap | €0.50/10K | €0.50/10K | N/A |

## Usage Metering

Every tool execution call to your MCP server counts as one request. The following are **not** counted:

- Health check pings (`/api/health`)
- Dashboard page loads and API calls
- Webhook events (Clerk, Stripe)
- Server-to-server internal calls

### How Metering Works

1. Each tool execution atomically increments a Redis counter (`usage:{userId}:{YYYY-MM}`)
2. Every 100 requests, the count is flushed to the database for historical analytics
3. At the end of each billing cycle, usage is reported to Stripe for overage calculation

### Free Tier Limits

The Free tier enforces a **hard cap**. When you reach 1,000 requests in a calendar month, subsequent requests return HTTP 429 (Too Many Requests). Your servers remain accessible — only tool executions are blocked.

## Overage Billing

Starter and Pro plans support overage billing:

- **Rate**: €0.50 per 10,000 requests (€0.00005 per request)
- **Alerts**: You receive notifications at 80% and 100% of your included quota
- **Billing**: Overage charges appear on your next invoice

## Upgrading & Downgrading

- **Upgrades** take effect immediately. You're charged the prorated difference for the remaining billing period.
- **Downgrades** take effect at the end of the current billing period. Any unused credit applies to future invoices.
- **Cancellation** reverts your account to the Free plan at the end of the current period.

## Billing Portal

Manage your subscription, update payment methods, and download invoices from the **Stripe Billing Portal**:

1. Navigate to **Dashboard → Settings**
2. Click **Manage Billing**
3. The Stripe portal opens in a new tab

## Self-Hosted Billing

Self-hosted deployments have **no billing or usage limits**. All plan enforcement is disabled when running your own infrastructure. The billing system only applies to the managed cloud platform.
