The three classes
Rates
Per million tokens, in US dollars:
Cached input is the number worth understanding. A long conversation re-reads its own history on every turn, and that history is cached — so the tenth message in a chat costs a fraction of what it would at the full input rate. It’s why a long investigation is usually far cheaper than people expect.
What a token is, roughly
A token is about four characters of English. Reading a 50-row spreadsheet is a few thousand input tokens. A detailed development plan is a few thousand output tokens. Most questions cost cents; most module builds cost dollars.Choosing a class
Striker is the default and you can leave it alone. If you want to change it, the selector sits in the chat composer, and you can set a per-project default from the project’s settings so new tasks start where you want them. Changing class mid-conversation is fine — drop to Hatchling for a simple follow-up, raise to Apex when something turns out to be harder than it looked.No lock-in
There’s nothing to cancel. Credit you’ve bought doesn’t expire while your account is open, your code is already in your own repository, and you can stop whenever you like.Billing overview
Balance, credits and how usage draws down.
Usage
Where to see what you’ve spent, and on what.