How is usage calculated?
When you use our Robots to perform tasks with your files — such as importing, processing, or exporting — your usage counts toward your monthly GB limit based on file size.
For Robots that process files (i.e., the output file differs from the input file), we sum the input and output file sizes. For example, transcoding a 500 MB video into a 100 MB one counts as 600 MB.
Many Robots are lighter on our infrastructure, allowing us to offer discounted rates (see the table below). For example, importing files from S3 only counts as 10% of the file size. The same applies to exporting files to S3.
Basic example
Let’s say you work with a 500 MB video file:
- Importing the file with 🤖/s3/import counts as 50 MB (10% of 500 MB).
- Transcoding the video with 🤖/video/encode into a 100 MB one counts as 600 MB (500 MB input + 100 MB output).
- Exporting the processed video with 🤖/s3/store counts as 10 MB (10% of 100 MB).
Total usage: 660 MB (50 MB + 600 MB + 10 MB).
Discounted Robots
Uploading, Importing and Exporting
| Robot | Feature | Bytes counted |
|---|---|---|
| Handle uploads | 10% | |
| Import and export files with S3 | 10% | |
| Export to Tus-compatible servers | 10% | |
| All other Importing & Storage Robots | Import from & export to all other destinations | 15% |
Processing
| Robot | Feature | Bytes counted |
|---|---|---|
| Filter files | 1% | |
| Hash files | 20% | |
| Read file contents | 20% | |
| Verify file types | 25% | |
| Extract thumbnails from video files | 10% | |
| Concatenate videos | 25% | |
| Concatenate audio | 25% | |
| Encode audio | 25% | |
| Loop audio | 25% | |
| Merge audio | 25% | |
| Extract archives | 80% | |
| — | Extract metadata (with output_meta) |
1% |
Content delivery
| Robot | Feature | Bytes counted |
|---|---|---|
| Serve files to web browsers | 25% |
Minimum usage for some Robots
Certain Robots require significant computational effort even when handling small files. To keep our pricing sustainable, some of these Robots have a minimum charge per operation.
- If you process a file that is smaller than the minimum charge, your usage will still be rounded up to that minimum.
- For example, if a Robot has a 1 MB minimum charge and the actual processing cost is 100 KB, it will still count as 1 MB toward your monthly limit.
| Robot | Feature | Min. charge |
|---|---|---|
| Generate waveform images from audio | 1 MB | |
| Scan files for viruses | 1 MB | |
| Extract thumbnail images from documents | 0.5 MB | |
| Auto-rotate documents to the correct orientation | 2 MB | |
| Convert documents into different formats | 1 MB | |
| Merge documents into one | 1 MB | |
| Take screenshots of webpages or uploaded HTML files | 1 MB | |
| Read file contents | 0.5 MB | |
| Generate a preview thumbnail | 1 MB |
AI Robots: USD-based usage
Some AI Robots have a minimum charge set in USD instead of MB. This amount is then converted to MB based on your plan’s GB price.
For example, let’s say you’re on the Hobbyist plan ($9/month for 5 GB), and you use 🤖/image/ocr, which has a minimum charge of $0.0013.
- Your per-GB price is $1.80
($9 / 5 GB). - We convert the USD to MB using your GB price:
$0.0013 / $1.80 per GB = 0.74 MB - This means the minimum charge for this Robot is 0.74 MB.
Here are the Robots with USD-based minimum charges:
| Robot | Feature | Min. charge |
|---|---|---|
| Detect faces in images | $0.0013 | |
| Recognize objects in images | $0.0013 | |
| Recognize text in images | $0.0013 | |
| Recognize text in documents |
$0.02 per page (aws)$0.015 per page ( gcp)
|
|
| Transcribe speech in audio or video files |
$0.024 per minute (aws)$0.016 per minute ( gcp)
|
|
| Speak text | $0.05 |
Flexible usage beyond your Plan
If you exceed your Plan’s limit in a given month, there’s no need to upgrade immediately. Instead, you'll simply pay a small premium for the extra usage in that month.
Each plan has its own overage rate per GB. See the details on the Pricing page.