One user or a million,
you pay $0

With the User-Pays model, every user covers their own storage, database, and AI usage through their own Puter account.

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The User-Pays Model

Every user brings
their own resources

Every Puter account comes with its own storage, database, and AI allowance, and your Puter.js calls run against the signed-in user's account.

  • Usage metered to each user's own account
  • Overages paid to Puter, not to you
  • You're never billed, at any user count
Read the User-Pays model docs

How the User-Pays model works

1

Users sign in

Every Puter account includes its own allowance of storage, database, and AI usage.

2

Your app runs on their account

Every call is metered to the signed-in user's allowance, not to you.

3

Heavy users top up with Puter

A user who runs out pays Puter directly for the extra.

Costs that don't
grow with your users

A traditional backend bills you for every user. With User-Pays, those costs never reach you.

  • No API keys to manage
  • No rate limits, captchas, or fraud systems
  • $0 on launch day, $0 at a million users

Monthly infrastructure cost as an app grows

Traditional backend Puter
monthly infrastructure cost $0 1 user 500K 1M users Traditional backend $0

Illustrative comparison. Traditional backend costs vary by stack and usage.

Who pays for what

The whole model, in two columns.

You
the developer
$0 for infrastructure, at any scale
  • Unlimited users
  • Auth, storage, database, AI Gateway, hosting, and more
  • No servers, no API keys
  • No usage metered to you
Start Building
Your users
each with a Puter account
Their own usage
  • Free allowance of storage, database, and AI usage
  • Pay Puter directly, only beyond the allowance
  • One account works across all Puter apps
  • Billing never goes through you
How user accounts work

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I really pay nothing to run my app?

Yes. Puter doesn't charge developers for infrastructure. Storage, database, and AI usage are metered to each signed-in user's own Puter account, so your costs don't grow with your user count. Whether your app has one user or a million, your infrastructure bill is $0.

What do my users get for free?

Every Puter account includes an allowance of storage, database, and AI usage at no charge. Your app runs against that allowance, and users who stay within it pay nothing. One Puter account works across every app built on Puter.

What happens when a user exceeds their allowance?

They pay Puter directly for the extra usage through their own account. Their billing never goes through you, and other users of your app are unaffected.

How is this different from bring-your-own-key?

Bring-your-own-key asks each user to create accounts with API providers, generate keys, and paste them into your app, and every key becomes a secret your app has to protect. With Puter there are no keys at all. Users sign in with their Puter account, and every request is authenticated and metered to them automatically.

What stops someone from abusing my app?

Abuse can't run up your bill, because usage is metered to each user's own account, so a bad actor has no free resources to farm. Anti-abuse, rate limiting, and fraud detection are also built into the Puter account layer, so bots and fake sign-ups are filtered before they reach your app.

Can my app use my own resources instead of the user's?

Yes. App-level resources shared by all users, such as a serverless worker and its data, can run on your own account. The User-Pays model covers per-user usage such as each user's files, key-value data, and AI calls.

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Copy one prompt into Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, or any coding agent,
and get a working app with auth, storage, database, and AI built in.

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