Documentation
Everything you need to plug CheapAI into your tooling — setup guides for popular agents, API reference, FAQ.
What is a subscription
A subscription gives you a flat discount on every request to any model for 30 days. The price of the plan is deducted from your account balance at activation — there's no separate billing for the subscription. After 30 days the discount expires automatically; whatever balance you had keeps working at the regular rate.
Why this is convenient: you don't need to change your API keys, your Cursor / Claude Code / Cline settings, or anything else. The discount applies to any key you already have automatically — through the discount group set on your account.
When a subscription pays off
A subscription is profitable when you plan to spend more on models within 30 days than the price of the plan. The break-even point depends on the discount:
- Starter (−30%): pays off if you spend $33+ on models during the month
- Pro (−50%): pays off if you spend $80+ on models during the month
- Premium (−70%): pays off if you spend $143+ on models during the month
If you spend less than that, plain pay-as-you-go is cheaper for you — no need to activate a plan. Check your average spend at Dashboard → Logs.
How to subscribe
Top up your balance so that you have at least the plan price on it. Go to Top up — pay by RUB (FreeKassa: SBP / card / SberPay), USD (Lava: Visa/MC/PayPal), or crypto (Heleket: USDT on TRC20/BEP20/Polygon/TON, or Bitcoin).
Open the Plans page. You'll see three tariffs — Starter / Pro / Premium — each with the discount %, price in USD, and a breakdown of how many tokens of each flagship model you can effectively use during the month.
Click Activate on the plan you want. The price is instantly deducted from your balance, and the discount starts working immediately on all your API keys. The card «Active subscription» appears in your dashboard with the remaining days.
Use your API as usual — Cursor, Claude Code, your own SDK, whatever. The discount is applied automatically on every request through the discount group set on your account.
Cancellation and expiry
You can cancel anytime from the Plans page. We'll refund a pro-rata share of the price back to your balance — for example, if you cancel after 10 days on a 30-day plan, ~2/3 of the price returns. The discount stops right away.
When the 30 days expire automatically, the discount turns off — but your balance and API keys keep working at the regular rate. You decide whether to re-activate the same plan, upgrade, or stay on pay-as-you-go.
FAQ
Will I lose unspent balance after the subscription expires?
No. Whatever balance remains keeps working at the regular rate. Only the discount expires.
Do I need to change my API key after activating?
No. The discount applies to all your existing keys automatically — through the discount group set on your account.
Can I have two subscriptions at the same time?
No — only one active plan per account. To switch to a different plan: cancel the current one (you'll get a pro-rata refund), then activate the new one.
Does the referral bonus apply to subscription payments?
Yes — but indirectly. The referral bonus 5–20% is paid from balance top-ups (the cash you actually paid us). The subscription itself is an internal debit from your balance and doesn't trigger a separate referral payout.
Does the discount cover Claude / GPT / Gemini equally?
Yes — the discount % applies as a flat multiplier to every model available in your discount group. By default the group covers all models in our catalog.