CartrouteHow are Cartroute credits counted?
One credit is spent per successful search, product, price-history or coupon call. Reference and account endpoints are free. Failed calls cost nothing. New accounts get 100 credits immediately and 100 more when the email address is confirmed; paid plans add 5,000 or 50,000 credits a month.
What does each call cost?
| Operation | REST | MCP tool | Credits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search all retailers | GET/POST /search | search_products | 1 |
| Product with every offer | GET /products/{id} | get_product | 1 |
| Price history | GET /products/{id}/price-history | get_price_history | 1 |
| Coupons | GET /coupons | find_coupons | 1 |
| Retailers, categories | GET /retailers, /categories | list_retailers, list_categories | 0 |
| Balance, ledger | GET /account, /usage | get_account | 0 |
| Web search on this site | /search page, logged in | n/a | 1 |
When is a call not charged?
- Validation errors (
422): the input is checked before anything is charged. - Authentication and suspension errors (
401,403). - Rate-limit responses (
429) and server errors (5xx). - A repeat of a call with the same
Idempotency-Keywithin 24 hours (see retries).
A search that matches nothing is charged. "No product matches" is an answer the call paid to learn, and the response says so in notes.
How do I see my balance?
Every metered response includes credits.charged and credits.remaining, repeated in the X-Credits-Charged and X-Credits-Remaining headers. GET /api/v1/account returns the balance and a low_balance flag (below 20); GET /api/v1/usage returns the ledger. The dashboard shows a 30-day usage chart.
What happens at zero?
Metered calls return 402 with code: "insufficient_credits", credits_remaining, top_up_url and, if the email is still unconfirmed, verify_email_bonus. An agent should stop and tell its user rather than retry.
Do free credits expire?
No. Signup and verification credits stay on the account until used. Plan credits are granted monthly.
What are the plans?
| Plan | Price | Credits | Extra 1,000 | Rate limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 200 once | n/a | 120/min |
| Builder | $29/mo | 5,000/mo | $6 | 120/min |
| Scale | $199/mo | 50,000/mo | $4 | 600/min |
| Enterprise | Custom | Volume | Custom | Custom |
See pricing, or email [email protected] for Enterprise.