Managed credits
Prepay a credit balance with Harriet and the LLM proxy pays the providers for you, with no provider accounts or API keys to manage: one balance and one ledger across OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.
How managed credits work
Your organization holds a prepaid USD balance. Whenever the LLM proxy handles a call for a provider where you have no BYOK key, Harriet forwards it with a Harriet-managed key and debits the balance: the provider's list price for the tokens used, plus a 20% management fee. Every debit is attributed to the person and device that made the call, so usage reports and the credit ledger tell the same story.
New organizations start with a promotional grant of $20 in free OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google credits, so you can turn the proxy on and try real models before adding a payment method.
Topping up
Top-ups happen on the Billing page of the console (visible to people with billing access) through Stripe Checkout, in packs of $25, $50, or $100. Where sales tax applies, Stripe adds it on top of the pack price; your balance is always credited with the full pack amount, and the receipt shows the tax separately.
- Open Billing. The page shows your current balance, managed spend this month, and recent ledger entries.
- Choose a pack. Select the $25, $50, or $100 top-up to start Stripe Checkout.
- Complete checkout. The balance updates as soon as Stripe confirms the payment, and the purchase appears in the ledger with its receipt.
Automatic top-up
Automatic top-up keeps the balance from running dry. It is enabled by default on new credit accounts and takes effect once a payment card is saved. When usage pushes the balance down to your configured threshold, Harriet charges the saved card off-session for your chosen top-up amount — $25, $50, or $100 — and credits the balance.
You can also set an optional monthly cap on automatic top-ups. Once the cap is reached, no further automatic charges happen that month; manual top-ups still work.
BYOK traffic never touches the credit balance. If you bring keys for some providers and use managed credits for others, only the managed portion debits credits; see Bring your own keys.
What happens at zero balance
Managed calls require a positive balance. When it runs out, the proxy first attempts an automatic top-up if one is enabled with a saved card; only if that can't restore the balance does it start rejecting managed calls with the error code insufficient_credits, which the desktop client shows to the person mid-chat. Two related codes tell you why an automatic top-up didn't rescue the call: payment_method_required (auto top-up is on but no card is on file) and monthly_auto_topup_cap_reached.
BYOK calls are unaffected: an empty credit balance never blocks providers you bring keys for. See Error codes for the full list and fixes.
A zero balance stops every managed call in the organization at once, including Anthropic (EU) models, which are managed-only. Set up automatic top-up before rolling managed credits out broadly.