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Credits — the unit of compute

Compute on a machine is metered in credits. Every execution has a real, itemised cost, and the pricing doctrine matches the physics doctrine: stated, never silent. You are told what a thing costs, in a unit you can audit, before anything is spent. Credits are the fuel; the envelope is the value the work mints in return.

The unit model​

Credit

The whole unit you read and reason about. A call's price is quoted, and charged, in whole credits — no fractional dust to reconcile.

Welcome grant

A new account starts with 1287 credits — the 1.287 Hz pulse scaled by 10³, one full credit-day of compute to explore with.

Funding source

Whether a call is free-funded or paid-funded decides who owns the envelope it mints — you, or the Foundation.

The cost of a call​

A compute's cost is composed from what it actually does — the operators it runs, the proof it signs, the state it writes. When a balance can't cover it, the refusal itemises the price:

{
  "error": "Insufficient credit balance. This execution costs 4 credits. Top up or upgrade your tier.",
  "code": "INSUFFICIENT_BALANCE",
  "cost_breakdown": { "total": 4, "reason": "2 operators + proof + secure state" }
}

That's a real response shape, not an illustration: two operators + the ZeqProof + the secure state write = 4 credits. More operators, deeper proofs, heavier state → a higher stated cost. The cost grows with operator count and cross-domain coupling — the same complexity that sets an envelope's value.

Balances and tiers​

  • A free demo key carries a compute balance on mint — enough to learn the whole surface: curl -X POST https://zeqsdk.com/api/demo-key/mint.
  • Metered tiers get a daily allowance. Once it's spent, the next call is refused outright — never a diluted answer. There is no "degraded physics" mode: a paid compute and a free compute run the same solvers, the same pipeline, the same proofs.
  • Higher tiers lift the allowance and add isolation (see the provisioner). You're paying for capacity, never for correctness.

Free vs paid — and what you keep​

Every charged compute mints one envelope. How the call was funded is the only thing that decides where that envelope lands:

  • Paid-funded → the whole movable envelope mints to you.
  • Free-funded (the daily claim) → the envelope mints to the Foundation; you keep the soulbound light proof that your machine did the work. The free claim buys results, not transferable value.

Why metering looks like this​

The same honesty contract that forbids fabricated physics forbids fabricated pricing: the machine tells you what a thing costs, in units you can audit, before it refuses. Every credit spent lands on the machine's audit trail like everything else, so an owner can reconcile spending against the record exactly.

  • Envelopes — the value a charged compute mints, and what sets it.
  • Bearer envelopes — take an envelope offline as a self-verifying file.
  • The tally — the ledger every mint and move is written to.