When your allowance is used up
When your AI words run out, we do not charge more and we do not move you to a bigger plan. The product stops using machine translation for you until you choose.
What stops#
- New machine translation jobs that do not fit in what is left are refused. The API answers with status 402 and a message that names the ways out.
- The check happens before a job starts and again while it runs, so two jobs started together cannot both overshoot.
What keeps working#
- Everything you have already translated and published. Visitors notice nothing.
- Editing by hand. Manual translations do not use the allowance.
- Translation with your own provider key. Those words are counted but never limited. See Word packs and your own provider keys.
- Export of all your translations.
- The dashboard.
Emails#
You get an email when you have used 80 percent and another at 100 percent. Quota and publish-failure emails cannot be switched off. The owner approved that on 2026-10-28 (decision D49). Marketing emails can be.
Your options#
- Buy a word pack. $10 per 500,000, once. It works until your current allowance window ends.
- Use your own provider key.
- Upgrade your plan.
- Wait. The allowance renews when the next window starts.
Monthly payers get the yearly allowance divided by 12 for each month. This default is OPEN.
The exact messages and codes are in What the limit messages mean.
A lapsed plan is different#
If your plan has lapsed, machine translation stops altogether. See Cancel, lapse and grace.
Known gap#
Limits are held in the memory of one server process. With several servers, a burst could go over by a small amount before it is counted. This will be tightened before launch: OPEN.