# MissingManual pricing

You pay what the research cost to run, rounded up to the next cent, plus a
flat $2.00. Nothing else. Research that fails costs nothing.

## The rule

- A maximum of $25 is authorized on a card before research starts. Anonymously, you approve that hold in Stripe-hosted checkout; the agent supplies the link and only the customer enters payment details. With an enrolled card, the same $25 ceiling is authorized on the saved card without a checkout page. Research starts automatically after authorization is verified.
- A successful research run charges the measured provider cost, rounded up to the next USD cent, plus exactly $2.00.
- A failed or cancelled research run charges $0, and the authorization is released or refunded in full.
- The charge never exceeds the maximum you approved. If the true cost lands above it, we absorb the difference and do not ask for a second payment.

Use the returned checkout expiry when provided; otherwise the checkout link lasts **24 hours**. Leaving checkout is not a backend cancellation. No research starts before verified authorization. Research can take up to **90 minutes**; retrieve and save the result and receipt before the capability expires after **30 days**.

A `pricing_gap` charges **$0** and fully releases or refunds the hold. The result stays withheld unless an operator records an auditable decision to release it free of charge.

[Install one skill for papers and guides](/install.md). No signup or account is required. SPT payment metadata remains an optional advanced path.

## Two ways to pay, one price

The arithmetic below is identical whether you use the anonymous remote MCP server or the `missingmanual` package with an enrolled card. Same $25 ceiling per job, same measured cost plus $2.00, same $0 on failure. Enrollment changes who approves each run, not what it costs.

- **Anonymous.** One Stripe checkout per run. No card is saved, and there is nothing to revoke.
- **Enrolled.** A card is saved once and later runs bill against it automatically. See [Install](/install.md).

## What enrollment is, and is not

Enrollment is opt-in. It is not a signup: no password, no dashboard. It saves a payment method with Stripe and issues a credential scoped to a single installation, which can be revoked on its own.

Consent at enrollment authorizes future research that **you or your coding agent** starts from that installation, at the disclosed $25 per-job ceiling. Anonymous per-run checkout never requires enrollment and is not going away.

## If a charge needs you

When an automatic charge on a saved card needs a human — the bank asks for authentication, or the card is declined — the tool call that hit the problem fails with a reason and a URL to resolve it. Nothing is captured and no research runs on that job until it is resolved.

An email also goes to the address given at enrollment. Email is best-effort and never guaranteed to be received; the URL returned to the tool call is the reliable channel.

## Worked example

These numbers illustrate the arithmetic. They are not a quoted price; what a
research run costs depends on how much research the subject takes.

| Line | Amount |
| --- | --- |
| Measured provider cost | $1.8342 |
| Rounded up to the next cent | $1.84 |
| Service fee | $2.00 |
| Total charged | $3.84 |

Providers meter below the cent. Card networks do not. The fraction of a cent
created by that rounding is printed on the receipt rather than kept quietly.

## Receipt

A completed `get_result` returns the markdown and a receipt carrying each of
these:

| Field | What it is |
| --- | --- |
| `providerCostUsdMicros` | Measured provider spend for the run, in USD micros. |
| `serviceFeeUsdMicros` | 2,000,000 ($2.00) for paid success; 0 for an operator-comped result. |
| `roundingUsdMicros` | The sub-cent remainder created by rounding up. |
| `merchantLossUsdMicros` | Present when the authorized maximum capped the charge. |
| `totalChargedUsdMicros` | What was actually captured. |

## Units

Provider cost is metered in USD micros — millionths of a dollar. Charges
settle in USD, in whole cents, through Stripe. `maxTotalChargeUsdMicros` is
therefore a whole number of cents expressed in micros: a positive multiple of
10,000.

## What there is not

There is no subscription, no seat, no minimum commitment, no prepaid credit,
and no leftover balance to spend down. There is one hold per job, and it
settles or it releases. Polling has no per-call fee. It can verify human payment and automatically start or resume the previously requested, approved research job; it never creates an additional paid job.