Billing & Usage

This page explains how Loom API counts usage, how quotas and rate limits work, and what happens when your subscription is inactive.

How usage is counted

Usage is counted per verification flow. Typical counting rules (confirm against your plan or dashboard):

Verification started: One usage unit when you call POST /verify/start and a verification session is created.
Token validation: Calls to POST /tokens/validate may or may not count toward usage depending on your plan; check your dashboard or plan details.

Usage is tied to your tenant and reported in the dashboard. Use the tenant usage endpoints from the API (if available in your plan) to read current usage programmatically.

Quotas vs rate limits

Concept	What it means
Quota	How much usage your plan allows (e.g. verifications per month). When you exceed quota, verification requests fail until the next period or until you upgrade.
Rate limit	How many requests you can make per time window (e.g. per minute). Exceeding the rate limit returns `429 Too Many Requests`; you can retry after the window resets.

Quota applies to billable usage (e.g. verification starts). Hitting quota means your subscription limit is reached; see When your subscription is inactive.
Rate limits apply to API calls regardless of whether they consume quota. See Rate Limits for endpoint-specific limits and headers.

When your subscription is inactive

If your subscription is inactive (e.g. expired, cancelled, or payment failed):

API calls that require an active subscription (e.g. starting a verification) will fail with an HTTP error (typically 403 Forbidden or as defined in the API).
The response body will include an error code you can use to show a message like "Billing issue — please update your payment method in the dashboard."
Resolve the issue in the dashboard (e.g. Billing or subscription section). Once the subscription is active again, API access is restored.

For the exact error code and message, refer to the API error responses or the Errors documentation.