API Credits
Drip Code runs on third-party APIs that bill per use. When one of them runs out of credit, the pipeline quietly stops at that stage — no scrape, no video, no voiceover. This page explains what each service charges, how to read your balances, and how to set up alerts so you’re never caught short.
Why monitoring matters
Each pipeline run touches several paid services in sequence. If Apify is out of compute units, Stage 1 can’t scrape. If your FAL.ai balance hits zero, Stage 3 can’t render video. Because the stages chain together, a single empty balance halts everything downstream — so a quick glance at your credits is the fastest way to keep content flowing.
The API Status dashboard
Open Dashboard → API Status (the API Status link in the top nav). You’ll see one card per provider with:
- The current balance or credits remaining
- A status light — 🟢 Healthy, 🟡 Low, or 🔴 Critical
- A “Top up” button linking to that provider’s billing page
- When the balance was last checked
Hit Refresh (top right) to re-fetch every balance on demand. Live data is shown for FAL.ai, Apify, and ElevenLabs; the remaining services link out to their own dashboards.
FAL.ai credits
What they’re for: AI video generation (Stage 3, powered by Seedance).
What it costs: Pay-as-you-go, roughly $0.02–0.05 per second of video. A typical short clip costs a few cents, so balances drain gradually with volume.
How to top up: fal.ai/dashboard/billing.
Recommended minimum balance: keep at least $20 on hand so a busy day never stalls video generation.
The live balance check needs a FAL admin API key. If your card shows “Live check unavailable,” the configured key is an inference-only key — check your balance directly at fal.ai/dashboard/billing, or swap in an admin key.
Apify credits
What they’re for: Instagram scraping (Stage 1). Apify meters usage in compute units (CU) and a monthly USD spend cap.
How much per scrape: a single Instagram profile scrape typically uses ~1–5 compute units, depending on how many posts are pulled.
Free vs paid: the free tier includes a fixed monthly pool of compute units and a low USD cap; paid plans raise both. The dashboard card shows compute units remaining and your USD spend against the cap.
How to top up: console.apify.com/billing.
ElevenLabs credits
What they’re for: AI voiceover (optional). ElevenLabs meters usage in characters of text converted to speech each month.
How much per minute: roughly 1,000 characters ≈ 1 minute of audio, so a 30-second voiceover costs about 500 characters.
How to top up: elevenlabs.io/subscription.
ElevenLabs is optional and only checked live once you add an ELEVENLABS_API_KEY. Until then the card shows “not configured.”Services without credit limits
These bill purely on usage and have no balance to run dry — monitor them in their own consoles:
- Anthropic — pay-as-you-go captions and hashtags, no credit cap. Track spend at console.anthropic.com.
- X (Twitter) — the Basic tier includes a monthly post allowance that renews automatically. Check it at developer.twitter.com.
- Google Cloud Storage — pay-as-you-go storage billed per GB. Track spend at console.cloud.google.com.
Setting up alerts
The dashboard tells you where you stand, but a billing alert tells you before you run out. Set one up in each provider:
- FAL.ai — enable auto-recharge or a low-balance email in the billing settings.
- Apify — set a usage limit and email notification under Billing → Limits.
- ElevenLabs — watch your monthly character allowance on the Subscription page.
- Anthropic & Google Cloud — create a billing budget with email alerts in their consoles.
Pipeline stopped unexpectedly? See Troubleshooting — an exhausted credit balance is one of the most common causes.