---
title: Pay-As-You-Go Overflow
description: Keep coding past your DevPass monthly allowance with an opt-in credits balance
icon: Wallet
---

import { Callout } from "fumadocs-ui/components/callout";
import { ThemedImage } from "@/components/themed-image";

By default a DevPass plan is a hard cap: once the monthly allowance is fully used, requests are rejected until renewal. **Pay-as-you-go overflow** is an opt-in on the DevPass **Usage** page that keeps requests flowing past the allowance — extra usage bills a credits balance at provider rates, with the same API key and the same coding agents. The Usage page also carries the full allowance meters, the [weekly premium allowance](/learn/model-categories), [Reset Passes](/learn/reset-passes), and the model usage chart.

<ThemedImage
	alt="The DevPass Usage page with pay-as-you-go overflow enabled: exhausted allowance bar, credits balance, top-up presets, and auto-reload"
	basePath="/learn/payg-overflow"
/>

<Callout type="info">
	Overflow is **off by default** — until you enable it, nothing ever charges
	past your subscription price. It never touches your plan allowance either:
	credits are spent only after the monthly pool is fully used.
</Callout>

## When overflow applies

| Situation                                   | Overflow off (default)       | Overflow on                        |
| ------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------- | ---------------------------------- |
| Within the monthly allowance                | Plan credits                 | Plan credits                       |
| Monthly allowance exhausted                 | Requests rejected with `402` | Requests bill your credits balance |
| Weekly premium cap hit, allowance remaining | Reset Pass or wait           | Reset Pass or wait — unchanged     |
| Weekly premium cap hit, allowance exhausted | Requests rejected with `402` | Premium models bill your balance   |
| Credits balance empty                       | —                            | Requests rejected with `402`       |

Mid-cycle, the weekly premium fair-use cap still applies even with overflow on — a [Reset Pass](/learn/reset-passes) remains the way to more premium usage inside your plan. Overflow takes over only once the monthly pool itself is gone: at that point you are paying provider rates from your own balance, so the fair-use cap no longer gates premium models.

If the allowance runs out with overflow off (or with an empty balance), the gateway's `402` says what to do:

```json
{
	"error": {
		"message": "Dev Plan credit limit reached. Upgrade your plan or wait for renewal on 8/24/2026. Or enable pay-as-you-go overflow in your DevPass dashboard to keep going past your allowance.",
		"type": "invalid_request_error",
		"code": "billing_error"
	}
}
```

## Topping up

Enable overflow on the Usage page, pick a preset ($10, $25, $50, $100) or a custom amount between **$10 and $5,000**, and **Top up** — the charge goes to the card already backing your DevPass subscription, with no checkout redirect. Usage itself is metered at provider rates with no markup on tokens; a 5% platform fee applies when you buy credits (plus 1.5% for international cards). Each top-up emails a PDF invoice and appears in your billing history.

Top-ups are idempotent end to end: a double-click or a retried request reuses the same charge instead of creating a second one.

## Auto-reload

Turn on **Auto-reload** and the balance refills itself: when it falls below your threshold ($5–$1,000), your reload amount ($10–$5,000) is charged to the saved card automatically.

<ThemedImage
	alt="The auto-reload panel on the pay-as-you-go card, with the threshold and reload amount fields open"
	basePath="/learn/payg-overflow-auto-reload"
/>

Guardrails worth knowing:

- **Disabling overflow always disables auto-reload** — you can never buy credits you cannot spend.
- Failed auto-reload charges back off exponentially (1h doubling up to 24h), and auto-reload switches itself off after 7 days of continuous payment failures.

<Callout type="info">
	Overflow is available on **every DevPass tier**. If you find yourself covering
	a lot of usage from the balance every cycle, a tier upgrade is usually the
	better deal: plan allowances turn every subscription dollar into $3 of usage,
	while overflow bills at cost. Compare on the [DevPass pricing
	page](https://devpass.llmgateway.io/pricing).
</Callout>
