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Overview

TokenLab uses pay-as-you-go pricing. You only pay for what you use, with no subscriptions or minimum commitments.

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How Billing Works

  1. Add credits to your account
  2. Use the API - costs are deducted per request
  3. Monitor usage in your dashboard
  4. Top up when your balance is low

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Pricing Models

Live prices can change as providers, routes, and model details change. Treat the Dashboard, the Models page, GET /v1/models/:model/pricing, and Pricing API to check current support.

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Token-Based Pricing

Most chat, reasoning, embedding, rerank, and some image models are priced by input, output, cache, or image-output tokens.
Pricing familyExamplesVerify current price
Chat / Responsesgpt-5.4, claude-sonnet-4-6, gemini-3.5-flashModels page or Pricing API
Embeddings / reranktext-embedding-3-small, qwen3-vl-rerankModel pricing detail
Token-priced imagesgpt-image-2GET /v1/models/gpt-image-2/pricing
Avoid copying static price tables into production logic. Store only model IDs in code and fetch or review current pricing before launch.

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Request and Task Pricing

Image, video, music, 3D, audio, and world-generation models may be priced per request, per image, per second/minute, per task, or by provider-specific usage. Check the selected model details before production usage.
FamilyExamples
Imageflux-pro, qwen-image-plus
Videoveo3.1, seedance-2.0
Musicsuno-music
3Dtripo-h3.1
Audiotts-1, whisper-1

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Async Task Billing (Video/Music/3D and Some Image Models)

For task-based generation, creating the task may reserve or pre-deduct the estimated cost. Final settlement happens only after the async task reaches a terminal success state during polling or finalization.
For task-based generation flows (video, music, 3D, and some image models):
  1. Submit the task. TokenLab may place an estimated pre-deduction or reservation to verify balance and spending limits.
  2. Follow the returned poll_url, or call GET /v1/tasks/{id}, until the task reaches a terminal status.
  3. When the task completes successfully, final settlement records the usage and the task response includes billing_transaction_id.
  4. If creation fails or the terminal status is failed, the pending amount is refunded or released and the request is marked non-billable.
If the dashboard does not reflect a completed settlement or refund after terminal status is visible, contact support@tokenlab.sh for assistance. 
# Example: Video generation billing
response = client.post("/v1/videos/generations", json={
    "model": "veo3.1",
    "prompt": "A sunset over the ocean"
})
# Estimated cost may be reserved now; final billing appears after success.

poll_url = response.json()["poll_url"]
task_id = response.json()["task_id"]
# Poll poll_url for status; billing_transaction_id appears after settlement.

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Billing Transaction IDs

Successful billable OpenAI-compatible non-streaming JSON responses include billing_transaction_id when settlement has completed before the response is finalized. The same value is also exposed as the X-Billing-Transaction-ID response header for browser and server integrations. Native compatibility routes, such as Gemini /v1beta, may expose the value via the header only to preserve the provider-native response shape. For async media tasks, poll the returned poll_url or GET /v1/tasks/{id}; the task response includes billing_transaction_id once settlement is complete. Streaming responses may settle after the stream has already been sent, so use the dashboard usage logs for reconciliation when the header is absent.

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Token Counting

Tokens are the basic units of text processing:
  • ~4 characters = 1 token (English)
  • ~1-2 characters = 1 token (Chinese)
  • 1 image = varies by size and detail

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Estimating Tokens

# Rough estimation
def estimate_tokens(text):
    return len(text) / 4  # Approximate for English

# Actual count (for OpenAI models)
import tiktoken
encoder = tiktoken.encoding_for_model("gpt-4o")
tokens = encoder.encode("Your text here")
print(f"Token count: {len(tokens)}")

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Usage Tracking

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Dashboard

Monitor your usage in the Dashboard:
  • Real-time balance
  • Usage history by model
  • Cost breakdown
  • API key usage

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API Response

Each response includes usage information: 
{
  "usage": {
    "prompt_tokens": 50,
    "completion_tokens": 100,
    "total_tokens": 150
  }
}

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Cost Optimization

Use smaller models (GPT-4o-mini, Gemini Flash) for simple tasks.
Cache responses for repeated identical requests.
Keep prompts concise while maintaining clarity.
Limit response length when full responses aren’t needed.
Streaming doesn’t cost extra but improves perceived performance.

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Low Balance Alerts

Configure alerts when your balance drops:
  1. Go to Dashboard → Settings → Notifications
  2. Set your threshold amount
  3. Receive email notifications

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Adding Credits

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Payment Methods

  • Stripe (Visa, Mastercard)

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Steps

  1. Log in to Dashboard
  2. Click Add Credits
  3. Select amount and payment method
  4. Complete payment
Credits are added instantly after payment confirmation.

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API Key Limits

You can set spending limits on individual API keys:
  1. Go to Dashboard → API Keys
  2. Click on a key to edit
  3. Set Usage Limit
When the limit is reached, requests with that key will return 402 Payment Required.

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Questions?

Contact support@tokenlab.sh for billing inquiries.