Listen API Billing FAQs
API VERSION: V2 ·
PodcastAPI.com
Answers to billing questions.
Fragen?
hello@listennotes.com
1. Can I use Listen API for free? 🔗
Yes. We have a FREE plan. We recommend that you start with the FREE plan and upgrade if necessary.
And
you
don't need to
enter credit card info for the FREE plan.
2. Do you store my payment info? 🔗
3. What if I exceed my quota limit? 🔗
If you use the FREE plan, then you will be suspended (e.g., getting HTTP 429) when you exceed the quota limit
(i.e., requests/month).
Your usage numbers will be reset when the current billing cycle ends. Your API key is always valid
unless you reset it.
If you use the PRO or ENTERPRISE plan, then you will be charged for extra requests beyond the free quota
(i.e., 5.000 requests/month for PRO).
We do tiered pricing, which is similar to many other APIs in the world (e.g., Google Maps API).
Please see the pricing details and try out the pricing calculator.
4. When will I be billed for the PRO plan? 🔗
The billing cycle is monthly.
For example, if you subscribe to the PRO plan at 8 a.m. on March 24, then you will be charged at 8
a.m.
on April 24 (1st billing, for usage between 8 a.m. March 24 and 8 a.m. April 24),
then at 8 a.m. on May 24 (2nd billing, for usage between 8 a.m. April 24 and 8 a.m. May 24), then at
8
a.m. on June 24 (3rd billing), and so on.
If you downgrade to the FREE plan from the PRO plan, you will be charged with prorated fees
immediately.
We update the prorated fee in your API dashboard every 10 minutes.
5. Will I get billed for error requests? 🔗
No. We only count requests with successful responses (HTTP 200) into your usage.
You also won't be billed with HEAD requests.
6. How are refunds handled? 🔗
7. If I switch to a new plan (FREE to PRO, or PRO to FREE), do I need to update the API key in my code? 🔗
No. The API key continues to work, unless you reset it.
8. How can I cancel my plan? 🔗
If you use the FREE plan, then do nothing. You won't be charged forever.
If you use the PRO plan, then please downgrade to the FREE plan.
If you use the ENTERPRISE plan, then please contact us: hello@listennotes.com
9. I use Listen API v1 (via RapidAPI). How can I migrate to Listen API v2? 🔗
Actually, Listen API v2 is (almost) backward compatible with v1 (as of May, 2019), in terms of
endpoints, parameters, and JSON responses. The pricing of v2 is simpler.
We hosted Listen API v1 on RapidAPI who handled analytics and
billing
for us.
As Listen Notes grows as a business, we need more customization and flexibility than the 3rd party
platform RapidAPI can provide.
Thus, we built Listen API v2 to replace RapidAPI.
To migrate to Listen API v2, you just need to follow three steps:
- Subscribe to either the FREE or PRO plan on this page.
- In your code, change the base url to https://listen-api.listennotes.com, change the version number to v2 in all endpoints, and use the new API key in the X-ListenAPI-Key header. You can simply copy the entire endpoint url from the docs page.
- Contact us at hello@listennotes.com, so we can turn on the "backward-compatible" mode for you. Otherwise, there are some minor discrepancies for the API response between v1 and v2.
Listen API v1's response headers X-RateLimit-* don't exist in v2. Instead, you can find
response headers X-ListenAPI-FreeQuota and X-ListenAPI-Usage when using
Listen
API v2.
We will keep Listen API v1 up and running. Please take your time to migrate to v2.
All the future improvements will only go to Listen API v2.
10. I subscribe to the PRO plan. What if I fail to pay (e.g., my credit card is lost or expired)? 🔗
First, we will notify you via email. You should update your credit card info as soon as possible.
We may rate limit your usage during the payment failure period. If you exceed the rate limit, your API requests will return 429 Too Many Requests error.
If we are still unable to charge your credit card within 12 hours, then we have to suspend your
use of Listen API.
11. We are a well-funded startup, our junior backend engineer's annual salary is $140k, and we oftentimes pay $150 per hour for a freelancer to build our app. But we can't afford the $200.00/month PRO plan. Can you let us use the PRO plan for free or give us some discount? 🔗
No. Good luck for your business.
We have a very generous FREE plan, which should be enough for many use cases.
It is totally okay that you use the FREE plan forever, as long as it suits your needs.
Whenever your use case outgrows our FREE plan, then Listen API already plays an important role in
your
business.
By this point, you should pay and upgrade to the PRO plan, just like what other good companies and
developers do.
As a small startup, we don't hire many full-time employees at Listen Notes. Instead, we hire a
lot of SaaS/API provided by other companies.
If a SaaS/API can save us 1 hour engineering time, then we are happy to pay $100.
This is how we justify the price we pay for a SaaS/API.
You can spend a small amount of money to save your valuable time, or you can waste a lot of time just to
save dimes and nickels.
Think about the hourly rate of yourself and your developers.
And think about opportunity cost.
12. Do I need to be a Stripe user to pay for the PRO plan? 🔗
No. As long as you have a card of Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, Diners Club, or JCB,
you are able to make the payment for the PRO plan of Listen API.
If you can't use a credit card or a debit card as the payment method,
you can also use PayPal.
In this case, you need to have a PayPal account.
13. What does an API request mean? Does displaying an image or playing an audio count as a request? 🔗
An API request is a successful HTTP request (with a status code 200) to hit any endpoints listed on the API documentation page.
We DO NOT count an image, an audio, or a webhook request as an API request.
14. Why do you charge me $140.00 immediately after I subscribe to the PRO plan? 🔗
This is a deposit that we will deduct from the total amount of your first billing.
Example:
After you subscribe to the PRO plan for 1 month, you may need to pay $360.80.
Thanks to your $140.00 deposit,
you'll only pay $220.80 at the end of your first billing cycle.
Previously some API users subscribed to the PRO plan, but failed to pay us.
To mitigate the risk on our end, we have to do this deposit thing.
15. What is the ENTERPRISE plan? Should we subscribe to the ENTERPRISE plan? 🔗
Here's the high-level summary of the Enterprise plan:
- Guaranteed monthly quota of 35,000+ requests — higher monthly quota, bigger pricing discount.
- It's an annual contract. You'll pay the annual fee once a year.
- You don't need to display our logo on your app / website.
- Relaxed server-side caching policy (i.g., you are allowed to store full API response data on your servers during service terms).
- The best SLA & customer support (by phone).
If you'd like to subscribe to the Enterprise plan. Here's the procedure:
1) Please tell us the minimum monthly quota you'd like to be included in your plan (minimum: 35,000
requests/month).
You may need to discuss with your engineering team to figure out the number. Or
you can stick to the self-service PRO plan for a few months until you have a better understanding
of your usage.
Then we'll give you a quote & send a sales agreement contract for you to review.
2) If all goes well, we'll sign the sales contract & you'll pay the annual fee & we'll switch your account to the
Enterprise plan.
16. I'm on the PRO plan. If I use 0 requests, do I need to pay? 🔗
No. Effective from January 18, 2023, you'll pay US $0 if you use 0 requests in a billing cycle.
If you use at least 1 request, then you'll pay a base fee US $200.00 + overage fee (if any).
Please visit the pricing page for details.
Pricing examples:
- April, 2023: Used 500 requests. Paid $200.00 (base fee $200.00 + overage fee US $0).
- May, 2023: Used 0 requests. Paid US $0 (base fee US $0 + overage fee US $0).
- June, 2023: Used 800 requests. Paid $200.00 (base fee $200.00 + overage fee US $0).
- July, 2023: Used 0 requests. Paid US $0 (base fee US $0 + overage fee US $0).