Pricing & credits

Free: everything the browser does locally

The browser runs on your machine, so every browser capability is free — no credits, works offline:

• Control + read: browser_navigate / click / fill / evaluate / screenshot / get_dom, scrape, browser_export, browser_act.
• Social capture, search, feeds, and read actions.
• Screen tools, session management, credentials, workflows.

Your cookies and credentials never leave your machine to make any of this work.

Metered: AI actions

Credits are spent only on the AI reasoning seam — the llm.ask / intel.judge calls (and features built on them, like research_run and vision) that the daemon sends to an Anthropic model.

If you set ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, those calls go straight to Anthropic on your own key and cost no Bureau credits. Otherwise, after bureau link, they route through Bureau's metered proxy. See Account & AI credits.

How the metered proxy charges

The proxy (POST /bureau/v1/ai/messages) is a strict pass-through with a server-side debit:

1. Authenticate the bur_ key — missing/invalid → 401.
2. Require the ai:proxy scope → 403 otherwise.
3. Allow only Anthropic-catalog models → 400.
4. Non-streaming only in v1 (stream: true → 400).
5. Affordability gate: if your balance is ≤ 0 → 402 "Insufficient credits. Top up to continue."
6. Forward the request verbatim to Anthropic with the server's key.
7. On success, debit your personal account from the real Anthropic token usage and write the ledger rows. A non-2xx upstream response passes through un-debited — you're never charged for a failed call.

Buying credits

New accounts start with a welcome credit balance. From there you have two ways to add credits — both spend the same way, on metered AI actions only.

One-time packs

Top up any time with a one-time pack on Pricing — Starter (€9), Builder (€29), or Pro (€99). Pay once, credits land in your balance. No renewal, no commitment.

Monthly subscriptions

If you use Bureau regularly, a subscription grants a monthly credit allowance at the same price points as the packs — but with bonus credits for committing (the subscriber advantage):

Numbers are placeholders pending final pricing.

Renewal mechanics. The first month's allowance is granted the moment the subscription activates. Each following month, when the renewal payment succeeds, the allowance is granted again — exactly once per billing period (a payment retry never double-grants). Unused credits stay in your balance. Cancel any time; you keep whatever balance you've accumulated.

BYO key is always free

Either way, credits are only ever spent on Bureau's metered AI proxy. If you set ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, AI calls go straight to Anthropic on your own key and cost no Bureau credits — packs and subscriptions are only for the metered proxy.