How billing works
Wallet, rates, and account states in browser-gateway/cloud.
Applies to app.browsergateway.com (cloud). The OSS browser-gateway npm package is free forever with no billing.
The model in one paragraph
No subscriptions. You start free. Everything that costs us real money (session recording, session traces, BYOK usage above the monthly ceiling) draws from your wallet at a published per-unit rate. When you want more, you top up. The amount you top up is exactly the amount added to your wallet: we absorb the card processing cost. Our revenue comes from margin on the metered features you use. Your browser provider bill (Browserless, Steel, Browserbase, Lightpanda, Cloudflare Browser Rendering, or your own runtime) is separate. Managed browsers, the browsers we run, are paid from your wallet instead.
Account states
| State | How you get here |
|---|---|
| Free | Your wallet balance is zero or below. Free features work up to fair-use limits. |
| Paid | Your wallet balance is above zero. A workspace that spends its balance down to zero is Free again until the next top-up. |
| Enterprise | You have a contract with us. |
You do NOT need to be on a specific "plan" to use the product. Every account gets free BYOK routing. Metered features unlock when your wallet has balance.
What every account gets for free
Free without any wallet balance:
- BYOK routing: 10,000 sessions per month included on your own browser providers.
- Cloud Data API calls (screenshot, content, scrape) count against the same 10,000-session ceiling.
- Cloud REST API: up to 5,000 calls per day with an account token.
- Bandwidth: unlimited, no meter.
- All routing strategies: priority-chain, round-robin, least-connections, weighted, latency-optimized.
- Multi-provider failover.
- Live playground.
- Up to 500 saved profiles, 10 MB per profile, 500 MB total per workspace.
- 60-day session log retention.
A zero-balance wallet does not unlock session recording or session traces.
What a positive wallet balance unlocks
Anything below requires wallet balance greater than zero. Charges draw at session close:
- Session recording at
$0.007per minute of encoded video, billed per second. - Session traces (
observability=true) at$0.05per 1,000 captured events. - Cloud REST API with a raised daily cap: 100,000 calls per day, up from 5,000.
- BYOK sessions above the 10,000/mo ceiling at
$0.0005per session. Data API calls count as sessions and share this ceiling. - Managed browsers at
$0.002per minute, billed per second while the session runs. They do not count toward the 10,000/mo ceiling.
Enterprise
Enterprise is a contract, not a self-serve plan. By contract we can offer a raised BYOK ceiling, volume discounts on metered rates, longer retention for session logs, recordings and traces, SSO / SAML, admin controls and contractual SLAs. Contact sales@browsergateway.com.
Per-unit pricing
| Item | Rate |
|---|---|
| BYOK routing (CDP sessions and Data API calls combined) | Free up to 10,000 sessions/mo, $0.0005/session above |
| Bandwidth | Free, unlimited |
| Session recording | $0.007 per minute of encoded video, billed per second |
| Session traces (observability) | $0.05 per 1,000 events |
| Managed browsers | $0.002 per minute, billed per second |
| Wallet top-up fee | None. You pay what you top up. |
| Minimum top-up | $5 |
| Maximum top-up | $25,000 per transaction |
Wallet mechanics
- Wallet balance is denominated in US dollars.
- Purchased balance carries across periods.
- No signup credit.
- You can request a full refund of a credit purchase within 14 days of the purchase. See the Refund Policy.
- Payments processed by Paddle, our Merchant of Record.
Retention
| Resource | Retention |
|---|---|
| Session logs | 60 days |
| Session recordings | 30 days |
| Session traces | 60 days |
| Profiles | Kept indefinitely |
When your wallet hits zero
- CDP connects that ask for recording (
session_record=true) or traces (observability=true) return HTTP 402. - BYOK routing continues free below the 10,000/mo ceiling.
- Above the ceiling, CDP connects return HTTP 402 until you top up. Data API calls are not refused: each one is still charged
$0.0005, and the balance goes below zero. - The Cloud REST API drops to 5,000 calls per day.
- Managed browsers stop: running managed sessions close within about 10 seconds (close code
4402) and new ones are refused. - All other free features stay available.
Recordings and traces that were in progress when the balance ran out stop cleanly. The session itself keeps running.
A connect that asks for recording or traces on a router whose Recording or Traces switch is off returns HTTP 409, whatever the balance. See Router switches.
Negative balance during a burst
Our enforcement runs at the edge with a cache that refreshes within about a minute. Under a burst of concurrent metered sessions right as your wallet hits zero, a small amount of usage can slip through before enforcement kicks in. Your balance will show as negative for the difference.
The negative balance is a record, not a bill: the next top-up deducts the negative amount before crediting your wallet. For example, a wallet at -$0.30 topped up by $5 becomes $4.70. No penalty, no separate invoice.
While your balance is negative, recording, traces and CDP sessions above the monthly ceiling return HTTP 402 at connect time until you top up. Free BYOK routing under the ceiling stays available.