How Credits Work

Credits are consumed when DocSpring processes live submissions or combines PDFs. Watermarked test submissions and preview PDFs are free. Combined PDFs have no test mode: combining consumes credits even with a test API token or watermarked source PDFs.

What a job costs

Each PDF is measured in units. One unit covers up to:

Dimension	One unit
Pages	10 pages
Template PDF size	10 MiB
Measured CPU time	20 seconds
Output PDF size	50 MiB

A PDF’s size is the highest of these, rounded up (not the sum), and at least 1 unit, so most PDFs are 1 unit. Size is measured in MiB (1,048,576 bytes). Template size applies to PDF-template submissions. Processing time and template size count where they’re measured; memory isn’t charged.

Each kind of PDF costs a number of credits per unit:

PDF	Credits per unit
Filled PDF form (a submission to a PDF template)	20
PDF from an HTML template	4
Combined PDF	4

Two charges are added on top:

• Source PDFs (combined PDFs): 4 credits for each source document. Generating the source PDFs is charged separately.
• Signers (e-signatures): 60 credits for each data request whose signer is asked to sign or initial, whatever the size of the PDF. A data request asks for a signature when its fields include a signature or initials field, or, without a fields list, when the template has a signature or initials field that your API request didn’t fill in. Data requests that only collect values such as text, numbers and dates add nothing. The charge is made with the final live PDF; creating requests, recording events, issuing access tokens, and generating previews have no separate charge.

Retained PDFs have a separate storage charge after their first 30 days.

Examples

Job	Credits
A filled PDF form of up to 10 pages	20
A 45-page filled PDF form	100
A 3-page PDF from an HTML template	4
A 3-page filled PDF form with 2 signers	140
Combining 12 one-page PDFs	56

Combining 12 one-page PDFs costs 48 credits for the source PDFs plus 8 credits for the 12-page combined PDF (2 units). What a credit costs depends on your plan or credit pack: the pricing page shows the price of each kind of PDF on every plan and pack.

Stored PDFs

Each completed PDF includes 30 days of storage, starting when it becomes available. After that, storage costs the greater of:

• 1 credit per 50 MiB-month of stored PDFs; or
• 1 credit per 50 PDF-months.

Both components are prorated for the time PDFs are stored during the UTC calendar month. We take the higher component, then round up once for your account for that month. We do not add the two components or round each PDF separately. A nonzero monthly total can therefore cost one credit even if you store less than 50 MiB and fewer than 50 PDFs.

For example, after the included 30 days:

Storage retained for a whole month	Monthly credits
1,000 PDFs totalling 500 MiB	20
1,000 PDFs totalling 5 GiB	103
250,000 PDFs totalling 100 GiB	5,000

Retaining 1,000 PDFs totalling 500 MiB for half a month costs 10 credits. PDFs expired within their first 30 days have no storage charge.

The same rates and included period apply on every plan, including Developer. Generated PDFs and combined PDFs are measured as separate retained files. A combined PDF’s source submissions count separately while you keep them. Normal watermarked test submissions, previews, templates and temporary processing files have no storage charge. Combining has no test mode, so retaining a combined PDF can incur storage charges even when its sources were watermarked.

Storage charges are collected from your credit balance after the month ends, independently of your subscription renewal date. Developer accounts use the same schedule without needing a Stripe subscription. Spending credits on storage does not create another payment invoice.

If storage credits are due

If your unreserved balance cannot cover the whole storage charge, we keep your PDFs and show the credits due in Billing. We email your billing email address and give you seven days to add credits before new live PDF jobs pause. Already admitted jobs can finish; downloads, expiration controls, watermarked test PDFs and previews remain available. Funding pays outstanding storage charges before admitting more live work, and waiting submissions resume automatically.

Automatic top-up can fund storage charges when enabled, using your chosen pack and spending cap. Storage never enables automatic top-up for you. An unpaid storage charge can trigger an opted-in purchase even above your usual threshold.

Storage continues to accrue during the grace period and while live jobs are paused. Expire PDFs you no longer need to stop future storage charges. Expiration does not erase charges for storage already used. Cancelling a paid subscription does not turn off storage billing or automatic top-up.

If storage stays unpaid

We don’t keep PDFs indefinitely while their storage is unpaid. If storage credits are still due 90 days after live jobs paused, we delete your stored PDFs that are past their included 30 days of storage, together with their submission data. Your account, templates and newer PDFs are not affected, and the storage charge already owed stays due until you add credits.

We email your billing email address 30 days and again 7 days before the deletion date, which is also shown in Billing. Adding enough credits to pay the storage charge at any point before then cancels the deletion.

Credit expiry and rollover

• Monthly plan credits (Starter, Growth, Scale) roll over for 12 months, so occasional busy months are covered by quieter ones.
• Purchased credit packs also expire after 12 months.
• Developer plan credits (the free monthly grant) don’t roll over. They reset with each monthly grant.

Credits are always spent oldest expiry first. The Billing page shows the next credits to expire, and its Usage tab lists every upcoming expiry date. When at least 200 credits from a subscription, credit pack, plan upgrade or courtesy grant will expire within 30 days, we email your billing email address once about them. Free Developer credits are not included because they reset every month.

Low-credit warnings

When your balance drops below the greater of 20% of your monthly allowance or 100 credits, we queue an email to your billing email address immediately. We send one warning while the balance stays low. Adding enough credits resets the warning for the next drop. If your balance recovers before the email is sent, we skip it.

Warnings are suppressed while automatic top-up can recover the balance. If top-up has reached its spending cap or requires your attention, low-credit warnings remain enabled.

What happens when you run out

When your balance can’t cover a live job (at least one unit of it, plus 60 credits for each signer or 4 for each source PDF), or storage credits are overdue:

• New live PDF generation pauses. API requests return 402 Payment Required and the submission is saved in the insufficient_credits state, and nothing is lost.
• Paused submissions show as Waiting for Credits and resume automatically once enough credits are available (buy a pack, enable auto top-up, or receive your next monthly grant). A submission resumes once your balance covers at least one unit of it, plus 60 credits for each signer (or 4 credits for each source PDF of a combined PDF); a larger PDF can need more. A PDF that has already rendered becomes available once your balance covers it.
• Work waits up to 30 days from when it first ran out of credits. After that it isn’t processed: the dashboard shows Not processed and the API reports the error state. You can discard waiting work with Discard waiting submissions on the Billing page, or from a submission’s page.
• No webhook is sent when work starts waiting. When it expires or is discarded, DocSpring sends the submission.failed (or combined_submission.failed) webhook.
• Test submissions keep working, so development is never interrupted.

See Credits & Rate Limits in the API guide for how to handle these responses in your integration, and Credit Packs & Auto Top-ups for keeping your balance topped up automatically.