Guides · Agents

Stop an AI agent overspending on APIs.

An agent in a loop can spend a month's budget in minutes. Four controls stop that: an exact quote before each paid call, a hard per-call ceiling, a prepaid balance instead of an open card, and a cost line in every answer the agent can log.

Quote
Free
Per-call cap
maxUsd
Balance
Prepaid
Cost
In every answer

Updated 16 October 2026

1. Quote first

json
{
  "op": "searchPeople",
  "company": "stripe",
  "titles": [
    "Head of Data"
  ],
  "limit": 25,
  "estimateOnly": true
}

2. Cap the call

json
{
  "op": "searchPeople",
  "company": "stripe",
  "titles": [
    "Head of Data"
  ],
  "limit": 25,
  "maxUsd": 0.1
}

3. Fund a balance, not a card

The agent spends from a prepaid balance a person tops up from $5. When it runs low the API answers payment_required with a top-up link for a person, and the agent stops. It can never add money itself.

4. Log the cost line

Every answer carries cost.usd (what was charged) and the balance left. Have the agent report both after each step so you see spend as it happens.

Questions people ask.

What happens if a call would cost more than maxUsd?

The API refuses it with budget_exceeded before spending anything, and returns the quote so the agent can ask you.

Try it in a minute. $0.10 free.

The playground runs any endpoint by hand: pick a platform and what you want from it, fill a short form named in plain words (or press Use sample input), see the free quote on the Run button, run it, then read the answer as a table or JSON and download it as CSV or JSON. The same call is written out as cURL, Python and Node while you type.

Try in playground

Quickstart · Every price · All platforms

Why people pick API for Agents

  • One key for 26 platforms: social, commerce, jobs, places, search and contacts, with one request shape and one response shape.
  • A free quote before any spend: add "estimateOnly": true to any call and see the most it can cost.
  • Pay per record in US dollars. No subscription, nothing expires, top-ups from $5.
  • $0.10 free to try, no card. An AI agent can sign itself up in one request; a person claims it later.
  • Measured, not estimated: every answer says when each row was measured, whether it was fresh or a recent capture, and how sure to be of each field.
  • Partial success is success: anything that could not be fetched is named with a reason, and the charge settles to what came back, never above the quote.
  • Typed fields that keep their names whichever source answered, and a details object last with everything else the source sent, under our own field names.
  • Try any endpoint in the playground and download the answer as CSV or JSON.

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