Plans & Usage
This page is about what Butterbase charges you for running your backend.
For charging your own end users, see Charging Your Users.
There are four, and each one is the one before it plus more:
| Playground | Free. Build something and find out whether it works. No card needed. |
| Launch | Everything in Playground, plus the things you need to put a real app in front of real users: more room, custom domains, and preview deployments. |
| Certified | Everything in Launch, plus room to grow, a bigger AI allowance, and priority support. |
| Enterprise | Everything in Certified, plus SSO, a SOC 2 report, a HIPAA add-on, an uptime guarantee, and a dedicated contact. Priced with you. |
You pay per organization, not per app, and every account starts on Playground.
The exact prices and allowances live in two places, on purpose — they’re not copied here, because they change and this page would go stale:
- butterbase.ai/pricing — the side-by-side comparison
- Your dashboard Billing page — what your organization is actually on, with live usage against each limit
butterbase billing statusPlayground projects are paused after a week with nothing happening on them. Nothing is deleted — resume them from the dashboard whenever you come back.
Usage meters
Section titled “Usage meters”| Meter | What it measures |
|---|---|
ai_credits | AI model usage cost, in dollars |
storage_bytes | Total file storage across all apps in the org |
lambda_invocations | Total function executions |
bandwidth_bytes | Data transferred out |
Credits, top-ups, and spending caps
Section titled “Credits, top-ups, and spending caps”AI usage draws down a single credit balance per organization, in this order:
- Monthly allowance — a per-tier credit grant, refilled on each successful subscription invoice.
- Top-up balance — pay-as-you-go credit you buy in advance; never expires.
When both run out, AI calls stop. Buy a top-up or upgrade to carry on — nothing keeps running up a bill in the background.
Buy a top-up:
POST /dashboard/billing/topup{ "amount": 25 }butterbase billing topup 25Spending cap — an org-level ceiling on AI spend, shown on the dashboard Billing page and adjustable per org.
butterbase billing cap getbutterbase billing cap raise --raise-by 50Auto-refill — optionally top up automatically when the balance drops below a threshold. Configure it on the dashboard Billing page.
Checking your usage
Section titled “Checking your usage”GET /dashboard/billingReturns current plan, limits, usage percentages, credit balance, and spending cap.
GET /dashboard/usage?startDate=2026-01-01&endDate=2026-01-31&meterType=ai_creditsReturns daily usage over a date range.
butterbase billing statusbutterbase billing usage --start 2026-01-01 --end 2026-01-31 --meter ai_creditsUpgrading your plan
Section titled “Upgrading your plan”POST /dashboard/billing/checkout{ "planId": "<plan-id>" }Returns a Stripe Checkout url. Limits update immediately after payment succeeds.
Managing your subscription
Section titled “Managing your subscription”POST /dashboard/billing/portalReturns a URL to the Stripe self-service portal — update payment methods, download invoices, cancel.
butterbase billing portalWhat happens when you exceed a limit
Section titled “What happens when you exceed a limit”Free tier: the org is soft-locked. Reads still work; writes are blocked until usage drops or you upgrade.
Paid plans: when your AI credit balance runs out, AI calls stop until you top up or upgrade. Other limits — storage, for instance — are enforced as plan caps. If a payment fails, a grace period begins; after it expires the org is suspended.
Account statuses
Section titled “Account statuses”| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
active | Normal operation |
soft_locked | Free-tier limits exceeded |
suspended | Payment failure past the grace period |