Understand the credit system, pricing tiers, free monthly credits, and how to manage your balance.
Jiro uses a credit-based system to meter API usage. Every API call costs a specific number of credits depending on the operation type. Credits are deducted from your balance in real-time before the operation executes.
Self-Hosted (Free) — No credits needed. All features are completely free when you run Jiro on your own infrastructure via pip install jirosearch. There is no credit system for self-hosted instances.
Jiro Cloud (Coming Soon) — Pay-per-credit pricing. You start with 1,000 free credits when you join the waitlist. Credits are consumed as you use the API. When your balance reaches zero, API requests are rejected with a 402 INSUFFICIENT_CREDITS error.
Credits are deducted upfront for most operations. If an operation fails after credits are deducted (engine error, circuit breaker open), credits are automatically refunded. You will see a REFUND_* transaction in your credit history.
Self-hosted instances enforce monthly usage quotas based on your tier. Quotas reset on the 1st of each month. When a quota is exceeded, subsequent requests of that type are rejected.
| Name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
Free | 1,000 searches | 1,000 searches, 500 scrapes, 100 AI queries per month. Max 5 concurrent requests. |
Pro | 50,000 searches | 50,000 searches, 25,000 scrapes, 5,000 AI queries per month. Max 20 concurrent requests. |
Enterprise | 1,000,000 searches | 1,000,000 searches, 500,000 scrapes, 100,000 AI queries per month. Max 100 concurrent requests. |
Here's what each operation costs:
| Name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
Search (cached) | 1 credit | Result was already cached from a recent identical query. Cache TTL is 1 hour. Cache key includes all request parameters (q, engine, pages, safe, etc.). |
Search (live, non-Google) | 3 credits | Live search on Bing, DuckDuckGo, Brave, YouTube, Amazon, eBay, Yandex, or Baidu. Each page fetched costs additional credits. |
Search (Google) | 10 credits | Google search. Premium pricing due to higher infrastructure costs and API fees. Most comprehensive results. |
Scrape | 2 credits | Content extraction from any URL. Handles JavaScript-rendered pages. No caching — each request fetches fresh content. |
AI Search | 8 credits | Multi-step agentic search with AI reasoning. Runs 2-5 searches across multiple engines, scrapes top results, and synthesises an answer. |
AI Synthesize | 6 credits | AI synthesis from your provided context data. You control the input; the AI processes and reasons over it. |
Agent | 15 credits | Autonomous multi-step research agent. Flat rate regardless of step count (1-20 steps). Plans queries, searches, scrapes, and reasons. |
MCP Proxy | 3 credits | Transparent MCP protocol proxy. Forwards any HTTP method to the Jiro MCP server. Credits refunded if upstream fails. |
Every account starts with 1,000 free credits. On the 1st of each month, your credits are topped up to 1,000 if your balance is below that amount. No payment information is required.
With 1,000 free credits per month, you can: - Perform approximately 333 cached searches, or - Perform approximately 111 live non-Google searches, or - Run approximately 125 scrape operations, or - Perform approximately 125 AI searches, or - Run approximately 166 AI synthesis operations, or - Run approximately 66 agent research sessions
You can mix and match operations within your monthly allocation. Credits do not roll over to the next month.
Use the credits endpoint to check your current balance and recent transactions:
The status endpoint also returns your recent transaction history, showing credit deductions and refunds. Each transaction includes:
type — the operation type (SEARCH, SCRAPE, AI_SEARCH, AI_SYNTHESIZE, AGENT, MCP_PROXY)credits — number of credits deducted (negative) or refunded (positive)timestamp — when the transaction occurredrequest_id — unique identifier for debuggingRefund transactions appear with a REFUND_ prefix when credits are returned due to engine errors or circuit breaker rejections. The rate limit headers (X-RateLimit-Remaining-*) also help you track your remaining capacity in real-time.