Aurora's platform uses a credit-based billing model. Certain API operations consume credits from your tenant's balance. Understanding which operations incur costs is important for building integrations that use the API responsibly — particularly for automated or AI-driven workflows that may invoke operations at volume. Note that credit-consuming features are typically add-ons or tier-gated; not all tenants have access to every operation listed here. See Feature Availability for details.
The number of credits consumed varies by your customer plan and, for projects, by project type (residential vs. commercial). Contact your Aurora account manager or refer to your contract for the specific costs that apply to your tenant.
Operations that consume credits
Creating a project
Every call to create a project consumes credits from your tenant's balance. Residential and commercial projects may consume different amounts.
For AI agents and automated integrations: Do not create projects as a mechanism to retrieve information you could obtain through other means. For example, avoid creating a project solely to look up an AHJ (Authority Having Jurisdiction) or to test a workflow. Credits consumed by project creation cannot be recovered.
Expert design requests
Requesting a design from Aurora's Site Modeling Service (Standard Expert Design or Expedited Expert Design) consumes credits per model accepted. If the delivered model does not meet quality standards and is not accepted, credits are not charged.
Aurora AI (AI Roof)
Running Aurora AI to generate a 3D roof model from aerial imagery consumes credits per accepted run. If the result is not accepted, credits are not charged. Aurora AI is available as a plan add-on and is included in the Scale tier.
By default, a roof model generated through Run AI Roof is accepted as soon as the run succeeds, so credits are consumed at that moment. Setting defer_auto_accept to true on that operation instead holds the model pending for one hour: credits are consumed when that hour elapses, and you can avoid the charge entirely by calling Reject AI Roof before it does.
Rejecting a roof model deletes the design. AI Roof writes the generated model directly into the design and there is no way to remove only the generated geometry, so rejection deletes the whole design and everything attached to it — proposals, agreements, plan sets, financings, pricing and design assets. This cannot be undone. Reject is meant for a design created solely to receive an AI Roof model; do not call it on a design you intend to keep.Rejecting and deleting are all-or-nothing. If the design cannot be deleted, the model is not rejected either, and it will be accepted and billed when its review window elapses.
There is no API operation to accept a pending model. A model you do not reject is accepted automatically once the review window elapses.
Contract Manager
Using Contract Manager to send and track agreements consumes credits. Contract Manager is available as a plan add-on and is included in the Scale tier.
Plan sets
Requesting a plan set consumes credits. Standard plan sets, stamps, and instant plan sets each carry a cost. Plan sets are a post-sale fulfillment step.
Operations that do not consume credits per use
The following operations are included as part of your subscription and do not consume additional credits:
- All read (GET) requests — retrieving projects, designs, proposals, pricing, etc.
- Running AutoDesigner
- Running Irradiance Analysis
- Running Performance Simulation
- Creating or updating designs
- Generating and retrieving proposals
While the above operations do not consume credits, some require add-on provisioning for your tenant. For example, AutoDesigner and Performance Simulation are part of the Design API add-on and are not available on all plans. See Feature Availability for details.