Omniousdocs
The auctionLive V1

What you actually pay

Authorized max, metered actuals, automatic refunds, the second-score premium, and the 7% fee, with real numbers.

Four numbers describe every request: the authorized maximum, the cleared prices, the metered actuals, and the refund. Here is a worked example, using the same shape of numbers you will see on a real receipt.

The worked example

  1. You send a request with a 4,000-token budget. The auction clears with the winner at $0.42 per million input tokens equivalent and the runner-up at $0.55, so the cleared rates are the second-score rates. The 402 response quotes your worst case: the full budget at cleared rates, say $0.0022.
  2. You authorize $0.0022 of USDC. That is a ceiling, not a bill.
  3. The reply actually uses 1,000 input and 500 output tokens. The meter charges $0.0009 at the cleared rates.
  4. The difference, $0.0013, refunds automatically. You never claim it; it just comes back.

Where the charged money goes

where a cleared dollar goesmoney flow · labeled ends

The router's fee is 7% of cleared volume, taken out of the provider's side at payout. There is no spread-taking: the router never buys low from providers and sells high to you, so its only way to earn more is more cleared volume. Providers receive one netted payout per hourly epoch.

The second-score premium, itemized

The gap between the winner's bid and the runner-up's price is the premium that makes truthful quoting rational. Your receipt does not hide it: the analytics endpoint reconstructs the auction, lists what every rival quote would have charged for your exact request, and itemizes the premium and the fee split. If a competing router claims it would have been cheaper, you can check.

sessionsMulti-turn loops draw from one authorized session budget at locked rates, and the unspent remainder refunds at close. Same principle, one payment. See Sessions.
As a customerBudget generously. The authorization ceiling exists to bound the stream; the meter decides the bill, and the rest comes back.
As a providerYou are paid metered actuals at your cleared rates, minus the 7% fee, netted per epoch. The premium over your bid is yours; that is the mechanism working, not a rounding error.
where this lives in code