Billing – Core API

General Billing Principles

• API keys are billed retroactively on the 1st of every calendar month. Because the billing is retroactive, this means you will be billed for the month of January on February 1st. The charge will be made to the prepaid credit in your RANDOM.ORG account.
• The cost charged for each of your API keys will be the base fee for the key, plus fees for any requests used outside of the included amount. You will find details about this on our Core API Pricing page.
• Only requests that generate random values are considered billable. Requests to methods that do not generate random values, like getUsage, getResult and verifySignature, are considered non-billable and are free for the purposes of billing. You will find more details about these methods in the Signed API Docmentation.
• Unused requests in a given month do not roll over to the next month.
• To create an API key, you must have enough prepaid credit to pay for the base fee for the first month.
• If you're creating an API key in the middle of a calendar month, you will be prorated for the first month. The number of requests included on your license tier will be prorated too.
• An API key that is stopped (as opposed to running) does not serve billable requests and does not incur charges. Non-billable methods like getResult and verifySignature can still be invoked for a key that is stopped. You can stop your API keys from the API Dashboard.
• If you stop an API key in the middle of a calendar month, you will only pay its use up to the point at which it was last used. The charge will happen at the end of the month. If you start the API key again the same calendar month, you will be charged for the whole month.
• All dates and times in relation to billing are in UTC.

Billing Example #1: Starting in the Middle of a Month

On January 20th, Joe creates an API key with a Virtual Item Gambling license. This license tier has a base cost of $30.00 per month, which includes 30,000 requests. Joe needs to have at least $30 (the base fee) in prepaid credit in his RANDOM.ORG account for the key to be created. However, no charges are made to his prepaid credit until February 1st.

From January 20th to 31st, Joe issues 15,000 requests with his API key to RANDOM.ORG's Signed API.

On February 1st, Joe is billed for his key. There are 12 days from January 20th to 31st inclusive, so the prorated base cost of the key is $30.00×(12/31) = $11.61 and the prorated number of requests included in this price is 30,000×(12/31) = 11,613.

Since Joe has used more requests than is included (prorated), he will be charged for the remaining 15,000−11,613 = 3,387 requests. The cost is $0.001 per request with his key, so the extra requests will cost $0.001×3,387 = $3.39.

The total cost for Joe for the month of January is therefore $11.61+$3.39 = $15.00. The amount will be taken from the prepaid credit in Joe's RANDOM.ORG account on February 1st.

Billing Example #2: Not Using All Requests

Joe's API key runs for all of February, but he uses only 25,000 requests that month. Since the license for his key includes 30,000 monthly requests, he is charged the base fee of $30.00 for his key on March 1st. The 5,000 requests that he did not use in February do not roll over to March.

If Joe does not have enough prepaid credit in his RANDOM.ORG account on March 1st to pay for his key, his prepaid credit balance will become negative. He will receive an email notification and a grace period of two days to top it up. If his balance is still negative after two days, his API keys will be stopped and no further charges will be incurred. Joe can top up his prepaid credit and start his key at any point in time after that.

Billing Example #3: Stopping a Key

Jill has an API key with a Social Gambling license, which she is using to drive a card game. The base cost for this license is $50.00 per month, which includes 5,000 requests per month. Additional requests cost $0.01 each. Jill has been using the key for several months but now wishes to stop running the game temporarily.

From June 1st to June 5th, Jill made 750 requests with her API key. On June 6th, she uses the API Dashboard to stop her API key. RANDOM.ORG immediately stops serving requests that generate values with her API key, although she can still get past results and verify signatures, since the methods getResult and verifySignature are not billable.

On July 1st, Jill is billed for the use of her key during the month of June. The billing is prorated, because she stopped her key on June 6th. The last request Jill issued with her key was on June 5th, so the prorated base fee is $50.00×(5/30) = $8.33. The number of requests included in this charge is also prorated and works out at 5,000×(5/30) = 833. Since this is higher than the actual number of requests Jill used in June, there is no additional cost, and Jill's prepaid credit is only charged $8.33 at the end of June.

Jill can start her key again at any time, and it will not incur fees until she does so. Hence, if she does not start her key again in July, there will be no charge on August 1st.