Documentation
Billing and credit
Kakehashi is prepaid. You buy credit in US dollars, pay for it in your own currency, and every request draws against that balance until you top it up again. There is no invoice at the end of the month and no surprise bill.
How the balance works
Your balance is a single pool of US-dollar credit. Every request costs what the model's published price says it costs, and that amount is deducted as the request completes. Nothing expires on a monthly cycle: credit you bought stays until you spend it.
- Individual accounts have one pool, which only you spend.
- Organizations have one pool for the whole organization. Every group, every member and every key spends the same balance.
A key budget and a group limit are a different thing: they cap how much of the pool a particular key or group may use, but they never add credit. Only a top-up adds credit. See Organizations and groups for how to use them.
What happens when the balance runs out
Requests stop. Once spending reaches the balance, the gateway refuses further calls on every key drawing on that pool, and keeps refusing them until credit is added. Nothing is billed afterwards and no request runs on account — that is the point of a prepaid gateway.
The refusal arrives as an error response rather than as a silently empty answer, so your own error handling will see it. Adding credit restores service immediately; there is nothing to re-enable.
Topping up
Top-ups are made from the portal's Top up page. You choose a credit pack, see the exact amount you will be charged in your own currency before paying anything, and are then taken to the payment provider's secure page.
| Pack | Credit added |
|---|---|
| Small | USD 10 |
| Medium | USD 50 |
| Large | USD 100 |
The amounts are fixed — there is no free-form figure to type — and the credit added is always the full US-dollar amount of the pack. Tax and the currency conversion fee are charged on top of it, never taken out of it.
Who can top up
An individual tops up their own account. In an organization only an organization admin can; other members see the balance but not the payment form.
Payment methods
Payment is by credit or debit card, on a hosted page operated by our payment provider. Kakehashi never sees or stores your card details.
Local payment methods — DuitNow online banking and DuitNow QR in Malaysia among them — are built and waiting on regulatory sign-off. They are not available yet; this page will say so when they are.
When the credit appears
Credit is applied when the payment provider confirms the payment, usually within seconds, though it can lag. The confirmation page watches for about thirty seconds and then stops; your balance still updates when the confirmation arrives, even if you closed the tab. Nothing is lost by walking away.
Until a payment is confirmed it shows as pending in your payment history. A payment that fails adds no credit and is marked failed.
Currency and the exchange rate
Credit is denominated in US dollars because that is how model prices are quoted. You pay in the currency of the billing country you chose when you signed up: Malaysian ringgit, Thai baht or Singapore dollars.
Which rate you are charged at
- Shortly after midnight Kuala Lumpur time, Kakehashi reads the newest published reference rate for your currency. At that hour, the newest published rate is the previous day's.
- That one rate prices every top-up for the whole of that day. It does not move while you are mid-purchase, and it does not move between seeing a price and paying it.
- A currency conversion fee is added to the reference rate. The effective rate shown on the Top up page already includes it — what you see is what you are charged at.
- Local tax is then calculated on that subtotal and added. The breakdown names the rate it used.
Reference rates are published on business days, so after a weekend or a public holiday "the previous day's rate" can be a few days old. The Top up page shows both the date the rate was published for and the day it applies to, so you can always check which is which.
After the purchase
The credit is fixed in US dollars at the moment you buy it. Later movements in the exchange rate never change a balance you have already paid for, in either direction.
What makes up the price
| Line | What it is |
|---|---|
| Credit added | The US-dollar credit that lands in your balance. |
| Exchange rate | The day's reference rate, with the currency conversion fee already included. |
| Subtotal | The credit converted at that effective rate. |
| Tax | The tax of your billing country — SST in Malaysia, VAT in Thailand, GST in Singapore — calculated on the subtotal. |
| Total | What your card is charged. |
Separately from the top-up, Kakehashi's service fee is built into the per-token prices shown on the Models page. No further charge is applied to your usage afterwards.
Invoices and receipts
Every successful top-up produces a numbered tax invoice. There is no separate receipt: a paid invoice is marked as paid and is your proof of payment.
Find them on the portal's History page — each confirmed payment carries a link labelled with its invoice number, which downloads the PDF. The invoice is issued after the payment is confirmed, so a row that has only just appeared may not have its link yet; it follows shortly.
The invoice is denominated in the currency you paid in and carries one tax line at the rate charged. It is addressed to the registered name and address saved under Billing details on the same page, or to your email address if you have saved none. Changes to those details apply to your next invoice — ones already issued are not altered.
Payment history
The History page lists the payments you made, newest first, with the date, the amount charged in local currency, the credit added in US dollars, the payment method, the status and the invoice link.
Anything else
Questions about a particular charge, a refund, or an invoice that needs correcting go to kakehashi@classmethod.my. Quote the invoice number if you have one.