How credits work

VehicleMatic runs on prepaid credits. You top up in advance and each lookup draws down your balance — no invoices per vehicle, no lock-in.

The essentials

• One balance per company. Credits belong to your company, so everyone on the team draws from the same wallet.
• Charged on success. A credit is deducted only when a lookup succeeds and returns data. Failed or unverifiable lookups aren't charged.
• You only pay for fresh data. Results are cached; a lookup served from cache within the caching window doesn't cost another credit.
• Balance in every response. Each API response includes your remaining credit_balance, so you always know where you stand.

What a lookup costs

Different products cost different amounts, and your per-lookup rate depends on your pricing tier. See The product catalogue and what each check costs and Pricing tiers and volume discounts.

Scoped credits

Some credit — such as your welcome credit — is scoped to a particular product, so it can only be spent on that product. General credit you buy can be spent on anything.

Keeping topped up

Watch for the 402 (insufficient credits) response in your integration, and enable low-balance and expiry warnings so you're never caught short. To add credit, see Buying credits and choosing a plan.