API credits measure eligible completed REST data responses. They are separate from money, provider costs and source-use permission.
Responses that can use a credit
A completed successful canonical data page costs one credit, including an empty result or an insufficient fair-price result. Each explicit page is a separate request. Eligible nonempty native data pages cost one credit; native fixture pages with no fixtures and native odds pages with no eligible records are free under the native policy.
Free operations
Account/control, coverage and usage reads, errors, rate/quota rejections, HTTP 304 responses and WebSocket messages do not consume REST data credits. Authentication and permissions still apply. New accounts receive no automatic credit allocation.
Account-wide usage
Keys and namespaces share the account’s REST pool. The current metering policy uses UTC calendar-month cycles, with the exact reset shown in Usage. Credits do not roll over. Rotation does not reset usage. Overage is disabled.
Check the final outcome
Headers describe admission state; Usage shows final settlement. A timeout or downstream output error can leave your client uncertain even if a data page completed. Inspect Usage before deliberately retrying. See Errors and credits.