What a credit is
A credit is the smallest unit anyformat bills in. Nodes spend credits. Pages, files, and schema size matter only where they change how many nodes run, and over how much content. Two things never affect cost:- How complex your schema is
- How many fields you define
- Which nodes your workflow runs
- How many pages each node processes; most nodes are priced per page
What each node costs
¹ A validator is billed per rule, once per extraction. It is never billed per page or per file. A 3-rule validator costs 15 credits whether the document is 1 page or 100.
² Charged once, when you upload a PDF reference to an Edit node. Every run that uses it afterwards is free, however many runs that is. The per-page rate matches Parse, because it is a parse. Text references are free, because they need no parsing:
.csv, .txt, .md, .rst. A reference whose parse fails is never charged.
³ Charged only for pages whose content is new or changed since the last run. Re-running a workflow over unchanged documents adds nothing to your knowledge base and costs nothing.
⁴ Charged per 10,000 input tokens the answer agent reads. Text served from cache is weighted down. Cost tracks how much of the knowledge base a question makes the agent read, not how many documents the base holds.
⁵ Charged per page of the document, on top of Extract, when the Extract node has at least one Smart Lookup field, however many lookups run.
⁶ Charged once per Optimizer run, whatever the size of the workflow: the one-shot optimizer reflects on existing data and does not re-run your documents.
Most nodes are billed per page. A 10-page parse costs 10 × 25 = 250 credits.
Tiers
Parse and Extract each come in several tiers. You set the tier per node, with themode key in the API:
- Flash, parse only,
mode: "flash". It reads the PDF’s own text layer and makes no model call. This is the cheapest tier, for born-digital documents. 7 credits per page. - Fast,
mode: "lite". One OCR pass for parse, a lighter model for extract. For clean to moderate documents. Half the standard rate, rounded down: Parse 12, Extract 17. - Standard, the default. It balances cost and quality for most documents and tables. Parse 25, Extract 35.
- Agentic, a heavier multi-step pass for messy scans, complex tables, and low-quality inputs. It costs about 4× standard: Parse 100 against 25, Extract 150 against 35. Reach for it only when standard output is not good enough.
These are the default prices. An Enterprise plan can negotiate custom per-node rates. If your organization has an override, the Usage page shows the rates you actually pay.
How a run adds up
Add up each node over the content it touches. Take a 3-page invoice through parse → classify → extract, with a 2-rule validator on the result:
One 3-page invoice costs 220 credits. At the Business rate that is €0.22. At the Free / pay-as-you-go rate it is €0.33. That gap is why anyformat quotes costs in credits, not euros.
Common shapes, at a glance
For the page-priced nodes, each common workflow costs this much per page:
Multiply by your page count, then add any validators (5 credits per rule, billed once per run).
Two costs sit outside the per-page arithmetic, because they do not recur with your runs:
- A PDF reference document on an Edit node costs 25 credits per page, once, when you upload it. A 40-page handbook costs 1,000 credits the day you add it. Every run afterwards reuses it for free.
- The knowledge base meters only pages whose content changed. A workflow re-running over a stable corpus settles towards 0 rather than paying 2 per page forever. The 62 above is the first pass over fresh documents.
What a credit is worth
A credit’s cash value depends on your plan. Included credits spend at the per-node rates above. Top-ups are priced per plan:
Buy top-ups in credits from the Usage page in the app, through Stripe. The minimum is 30,000 credits. Every top-up generates a downloadable invoice.
Included credits by plan
Every plan comes with a credit allowance:
A Free organization gets no monthly refill. Its signup grant never expires, and it can top up at any time. anyformat.ai/pricing lists current plan prices.
Credits come from three sources, tracked separately on your balance:
- Plan grant: your included monthly allowance. On Free it is a one-time grant.
- Top-ups: bought any time, priced per plan in the table above.
- Vouchers: promotional credits. A voucher may carry an expiry, 90 days by default.
Tracking your usage
The Usage page in the app shows:- Your current credit balance, split by source: plan grant, top-ups, and vouchers
- Weekly usage summaries and a per-workflow breakdown
- CSV export for your own reporting
- A Top up button for Stripe checkout when you need more
Spending fewer credits
A few habits keep credit usage low:- Default to standard parse and extract. Agentic costs about 4× as much. Use it only for document types where standard underperforms.
- Add Classify or Split only when documents are mixed. Each adds a per-page node to every page. A single-type workflow does not need them.
- Keep validators lean. Every rule costs 5 credits per run, billed once per rule and never per page. Validate what matters, not everything.
- Parse only when you need markdown. To feed your own RAG index, search, or custom model, a parse-only workflow skips extract entirely.
What’s next?
Usage & Billing
The usage model behind credits: what anyformat measures, and why
Workflows
The nodes that consume credits, and how they wire together
Runs & results
What happens when you run a workflow
Build your first workflow
Parse → extract walkthrough in the UI, curl, and Python