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Billing Transparency

ASG is built on a principle of full billing transparency. Every cent is traceable — from quote generation to on-chain settlement. This page explains exactly how your money flows through the system.

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Billing Lifecycle

Every paid tool call follows the same deterministic lifecycle:

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Step 1: Quote Generation

When you call a paid tool, ASG calculates the exact price before any payment:
  1. Upstream cost lookup — ASG queries the upstream provider (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic) for the current rate.
  2. Margin applied — A transparent margin is added (see Margin Disclosure below).
  3. Quote created — A quote object is returned with the total price in microUSD and a time-to-live (TTL).
{
  "quote_id": "qt_20260209_abc123",
  "tool": "inference_chat",
  "amount_microusd": 2400,
  "ttl_seconds": 300,
  "expires_at": "2026-02-09T12:05:00Z"
}
Quotes expire after their TTL (typically 5 minutes). If a quote expires, request a new one — pricing may have changed.

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What determines the price?

FactorExample
Modelgpt-4o-mini vs claude-sonnet-4
Token countInput + output tokens for inference
Execution timeSandbox charges per second
Upstream rateCurrent provider pricing

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Step 2: Payment Verification

After receiving a quote, you sign a USDC transfer on Solana:
  1. Agent signs — Your agent signs a USDC transfer for the quoted amount to ASG’s settlement address.
  2. Proof submitted — The signed transaction (or its signature) is sent to ASG via the X-Payment header or payment_proof body field.
  3. On-chain verification — ASG verifies the transaction on Solana mainnet:
    • Correct amount transferred
    • Correct recipient address
    • Transaction finalized on-chain
  4. Idempotency check — Each transaction signature can only be used once. Replaying the same proof will not result in a double charge.
curl -X POST https://agent.asgcompute.com/mcp \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-Payment: <solana_tx_signature>" \
  -d '{
    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
    "id": 1,
    "method": "tools/call",
    "params": {
      "name": "inference_chat",
      "arguments": {
        "model": "openai/gpt-4o-mini",
        "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}]
      }
    }
  }'
Mainnet only — All payments use Solana mainnet USDC. There is no devnet or testnet mode.

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Step 3: Receipt Creation

After successful execution, a receipt is generated and returned in the response:
  1. Receipt minted — A unique receipt_id is created.
  2. Debit recorded — The exact amount debited is stored (always matches the quote).
  3. Solana reference — The on-chain transaction signature (tx_signature) is linked to the receipt.
  4. Returned to agent — The receipt metadata is included in the _meta field of the tool response.
{
  "result": {
    "content": [{ "type": "text", "text": "Hello! How can I help?" }],
    "_meta": {
      "receipt_id": "rcpt_20260209_def456",
      "quoted_usdc_microusd": 2400,
      "debited_usdc_microusd": 2400,
      "tx_signature": "5UxK...7nPq",
      "tool": "inference_chat",
      "created_at": "2026-02-09T12:00:30Z"
    }
  }
}
Every receipt is independently verifiable on the Solana blockchain. See Receipts for full details.

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Step 4: Balance Deductions

If you use prepaid balance (deposited USDC) instead of per-call payment:
  1. Balance checked — Your account balance is verified against the quoted amount.
  2. Atomic deduction — The exact quoted amount is deducted from your balance atomically.
  3. No partial charges — If the tool fails after payment, the full amount is refunded to your balance.
  4. Receipt issued — Same receipt flow as direct payment.
ScenarioWhat happens
Balance ≥ quoteDeduct → Execute → Receipt
Balance < quoteRejected with insufficient_balance error
Execution failsFull refund to balance
Quote expiredNew quote required
Balance deductions are recorded with the same tx_signature traceability as direct Solana payments.

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Margin Disclosure

ASG charges a transparent margin on top of upstream provider costs. Here’s how pricing breaks down:

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What you pay

Total price = Upstream cost + ASG margin

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What the margin covers

ComponentDescription
InfrastructureGateway servers, Solana relayers, monitoring
Gas sponsorshipWe pay all Solana transaction fees (Gasless)
ReliabilityAutomatic retries, failover, idempotency
Developer toolsConsole, receipts, analytics, API key management

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How to see the breakdown

Every quote includes the total amount. You can compare ASG pricing with upstream provider rates on our Pricing page.
Free tools available — Tools like get_status and echo are completely free with no margin. Use them to test your integration before making paid calls.

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Verification & Audit

Every transaction is auditable:
  1. Receipt lookup — Query any receipt by ID via the billing_get_receipt tool.
  2. On-chain verification — Every tx_signature can be verified on Solana Explorer.
  3. Balance history — Check your current balance and recent transactions via the Console at agent.asgcompute.com/console.
For receipt verification details, see the Receipts guide.

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Next Steps

Pricing

Detailed rates for all services

Receipts

Verify and query receipts

Gasless Payments

How we cover transaction fees

Billing Overview

High-level billing model