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Credits are the universal billing unit for all Rendobar jobs. Every operation — watermarking, transcoding, rendering — costs credits based on the job type and input/output duration.

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Credit lifecycle

1

Pre-check

When you submit a job, Rendobar checks that your balance covers the estimated cost. No credits are deducted at this stage. If your balance is too low, the API returns 402 INSUFFICIENT_CREDITS.
2

Execution

The job runs. Your balance is not touched during processing.
3

Debit

On successful completion, the actual cost is calculated (based on real output duration) and atomically deducted from your balance.
4

Refund

If a job fails or is cancelled, no credits are charged. If credits were pre-deducted (rare edge case), they are refunded automatically.

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Cost models

Different job types use different cost models:
Cost ModelHow it worksExample job types
Per minute (output)Credits scale with output video durationwatermark.add, transcode, caption.burn
Per minute (input)Credits scale with input video durationcaption.extract, compliance.gdpr.redact
Flat rateFixed credit cost regardless of durationthumbnail, qr.generate, compliance.moderate (image)
Per compute timeCredits based on actual processing timeraw.ffmpeg

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Rollover

Unused balance rolls over to the next billing cycle, up to a cap:
  • The rollover cap is 2x your monthly allocation
  • Balance beyond the cap expires when your new monthly allocation is added
  • Example: Pro plan (500/month)canaccumulateupto500/month) can accumulate up to 1,000

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Overage

On paid plans, if you exceed your included balance, jobs continue to process and overage accrues at the same per-job rates. On the Free plan, jobs are rejected when balance runs out — no overage is allowed.

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Checking your balance

curl https://api.rendobar.com/billing/balance \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer rb_live_YOUR_KEY"

{
  "data": {
    "balance": 75000000000,
    "rollover": 0
  }
}
The balance field is in nanodollars (1,000,000,000 = $1.00). The dashboard displays this as a formatted dollar amount.

Credits & Billing

Plan details and pricing table

Job Types

Per-type cost estimates