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, which allows us to offer discounted rates. For example, importing files from S3 only counts as 10% of the file size. The same applies to exporting files to S3.
You can see the detailed pricing for each Robot here.
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).
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 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.
- All actual minimum charges are listed on the Robot pricing page.
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.
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.