---
title: "Pricing"
description: "Per-million-token pricing, the cap-at-centralized rule, and the fee split."
source: https://docs.usepod.ai/marketplace/pricing/
---
## Units

Prices are quoted **per million tokens**, separately for input and output. In the
API and headers, prices are expressed in **USDC microunits** (1 USDC =
1,000,000 microunits) — so `400000` means $0.40 per million tokens.

## The cap-at-centralized rule

Marketplace and key relay listings are **capped at the cheapest centralized price** for
the same model, on both the input and output axes. A provider can list below the
centralized price to win traffic, but never above it. Consequences:

- The marketplace is never more expensive than the centralized fallback.
- In auto routing, an over-priced listing simply loses to a cheaper option or to
  centralized.
- In marketplace-only routing, if every listing exceeds your ceiling, the request
  returns a no-provider-at-price result instead of overcharging.

## Fee split

Marketplace routes split each settled inference:

| Party | Share |
| --- | --- |
| Provider | 80% |
| Treasury | 20% |

Users are billed at the operator's listed (capped) price; the split is applied to
that amount at settlement.

## Billing basis

Billing is based on **actual token usage** extracted from the response stream, at
the selected provider's price. Cache reads/writes are accounted separately where
the upstream reports them.