Pricing and billing

Reading, searching and asking spaces are included. Live scans are paid from a prepaid balance in US dollars.

Agents with a crypto wallet can skip the card and the console: they pay in USDC on Base or Solana and get a key in the same call. See Agents that pay (x402).

Spaces you scanned with the iPhone app are readable through the API, the console and MCP with the same account, at no cost. Billing stays separate: the app’s credits and Space Context Pro are App Store purchases; API scans are always paid from the balance, never from app credits.

Add a card

A live key that can scan (scans:write), whether you create it in the console, approve it for spacecontext login or allow scanning when you connect an assistant, needs a card on file. Test keys and read-only live keys never do. Without a card, creating such a key answers 402 PAYMENT_METHOD_REQUIRED.

In the console, open Billing → Add a card (a new account also finds it in the Get started checklist of the Overview). As for a top-up, you first accept the billing terms (below). A Stripe Checkout page saves the card and charges nothing; your bank may ask you to confirm it with 3-D Secure. The card counts once Stripe confirms it, within a few seconds of coming back to the console.

• The card is stored by Stripe, never by us. It is the same saved card that automatic top-up uses, but saving it does not turn automatic top-up on.
• One free scan per card. The first live scan of a new account is free, but a card brings a free scan only once: if the first card the account saves or pays a top-up with was already used on another Space Context account (even one since deleted), the account gets no free scan. Nothing is charged either way, and free_scans_remaining in the wallet says whether the free scan is there.
• Scans are paid from the balance: the card is charged only by a top-up you make or an automatic top-up you turn on.
• A new card replaces the previous one. Remove saved card deletes it from Stripe; keys you already created keep working.

Add funds

In the console, tick the billing terms (below), then Billing → Add $10 / $25 / $50 / $100, or type another amount under Other amount and press Add. You are taken to a Stripe Checkout page. Pay by card, and you come back to the console. The balance updates within a few seconds, when Stripe confirms the payment.

• Amounts from $10 to $500 per top-up, in dollars and cents, in the console as in the API.
• Buying as a company? Add your invoice details first, so the invoice has your company name and VAT number.
• The balance never expires and is used only for API scans.
• Tick Save the card for automatic top-ups to allow automatic top-up later; that card is also the card on file that live keys that can scan need. The card is stored by Stripe, never by us. Saving another card later replaces it, and the previous one is removed from Stripe.

Taxes

Prices and top-up amounts are in US dollars and exclude applicable taxes. Where a tax such as VAT, GST or sales tax applies, Stripe’s payment page adds it on top, from your billing address and, for a business, your tax ID, and the invoice shows it. Your balance always receives the amount you chose: $25 of credit is $25 on the balance.

• A business with a valid VAT number in another EU country is invoiced under the reverse charge, with no VAT added.
• Set your invoice details before you pay. Automatic top-up needs them, since it is charged without you on the page.
• A refund to your card includes the tax on the refunded amount; your balance gives back the credit it bought.

What you accept when you add funds

You accept these terms once, with a box in the console the first time you add credit or save a card. After that the console does not ask again: Stripe’s payment page repeats them next to its pay button. When the terms change, the box is shown once more for the new version.

• The credit is supplied at once. It is added to your balance as soon as the payment succeeds, and the scans you start use it: you ask for it to be supplied now.
• Credit already used cannot be refunded. A scan that fails is refunded to your balance automatically (see below). Money goes back to a card only if you ask: write to support about unused credit. Statutory rights, where they apply, are not affected.
• Unused credit never expires.
• Amounts exclude applicable taxes. Where tax applies, it is added on top and shown on the invoice (see Taxes); the balance receives the amount before tax.
• Payments ask your bank for 3-D Secure when your card supports it, and show on your statement as FINIKOS* SPACECONTEXT.
• The console records the time you accepted, the version of these terms and your IP address. That record, the ledger and your usage are what we show Stripe if a payment is disputed.

Automatic top-up

With a saved card, the console can top up for you:

• When the balance is below: the threshold, in dollars.
• Add: the credit to add, from $10 to $500. Where tax applies, the card is charged this amount plus the tax, and the balance receives the amount.

A top-up is attempted right after a paid scan starts and leaves the balance below the threshold. It is also attempted when the balance cannot pay for the next scan, and when a scan is refused for insufficient funds; in that last case the next attempt to start can succeed. Two attempts are at least 10 minutes apart, with at most 3 per day.

If the bank declines the card, automatic top-up turns itself off, the console shows the reason, and the wallet.auto_recharge_failed webhook is sent. Fix the card with a manual top-up and turn it back on. Remove saved card turns automatic top-up off and deletes the card from Stripe’s customer record.

When scans are charged and refunded

1. POST /v1/scans/{id}/start charges the scan in a single atomic step: the free scan first, then the balance. If neither covers it, the start answers 402 INSUFFICIENT_FUNDS with balance_cents and price_cents, and nothing is charged.
2. A scan that fails (unreadable video, nothing recognisable, processing error, or more than 2 hours of processing) is refunded once, automatically, and its files are deleted.
3. A scan cancelled before it starts was never charged.

The ledger

Billing → Activity lists every movement with the balance after it: top-ups, scans, refunds, free scans, card refunds and disputes. The balance is always the sum of the ledger, and it is checked every night.

If you ask your bank or Stripe for a refund of a top-up, the refunded amount is taken from the balance; if a payment is disputed, it is taken while the dispute is open. The balance can then go below zero until you add funds.

Invoices and company details

Payments are processed by Stripe on behalf of Finikos S.r.l. (Italy). Every top-up has an invoice, automatic top-ups included, made out to the details on file when it is issued.

Set your details

In the console, open Billing → Invoice details, choose Individual or Company, and save:

• Name, or the company name; the billing email that receives the invoices (your account’s email to start with); the billing address and its country.
• VAT number, for a company. It is required for a company in the EU (a business in another EU country pays no VAT: reverse charge) and optional elsewhere. Type it with its country prefix, as in IT12345678901 (in the EU and the UK the console adds the prefix if you leave it out). After you save, Stripe checks it with the tax authority, and the card shows Verified, Pending check or Not verified.
• Italian customers. A company gives its Codice destinatario SDI (7 characters, 6 for a public administration) or its PEC address for the electronic invoice: either is enough, and without either the invoice goes to its tax drawer (cassetto fiscale). An individual can add their codice fiscale.

Set them before you pay: invoices already issued do not change. If you have not set them in the console, Stripe’s payment page lets you give them while paying: tick the box for purchasing as a business and enter the company name and VAT number there. Once your details are on file, the payment page no longer asks for them, and the name and address of the card you pay with never replace them: a company paying with a card in someone’s name still gets its own invoice. The details are kept by Stripe with your customer record; the privacy policy says how they are used.

Download your invoices

Billing → Invoices lists every invoice with its date, number, amount and status, its page and its PDF. The API returns them at GET /v1/billing/invoices.