DataForSEO costs and spending controls
Per-point pricing by delivery mode, worked cost examples for common grids, the spend panel, and the optional monthly spend cap that is the only hard refusal in the app.
Updated
API scans bill your own DataForSEO account per grid point, at the rate of the delivery mode you picked in setup. Everything here is charged by DataForSEO at their published rates.
What a scan costs
| Mode | Price per point | Typical delivery |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | $0.0006 | 5 to 45+ minutes |
| Priority | $0.0012 | about 1 minute |
| Live | $0.0020 | about 10 seconds |
A scan bills one point at a time, so the grid size drives the cost. Worked examples at exact list price:
| Grid | Points | Standard | Priority | Live |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5x5 | 25 | $0.015 | $0.03 | $0.05 |
| 7x7 | 49 | $0.0294 | $0.0588 | $0.098 |
| 9x9 | 81 | $0.0486 | $0.0972 | $0.162 |
| Hexagon 7 | 37 | $0.0222 | $0.0444 | $0.074 |
| Circle 7 | 39 | $0.0234 | $0.0468 | $0.078 |
Non-square shapes bill by their actual point count, so a hexagon or circle grid costs less than the square with the same size number. The app labels them that way too: the grid pickers show each option with its point count, such as “Hexagon 5 (19 points)”.
The live cost estimate
Settings > DataForSEO shows a live estimate under the mode picker, for example “7x7 grid ≈ $0.10 per scan (live)”. It is recalculated from your default grid size, grid shape, and mode as you change them, so you always see what the next scan will cost before you run it.
The spend panel
The same settings section carries the spend ledger, recorded from DataForSEO’s per-task billing reports:
- Total spend: everything this installation has spent through the API.
- This month: spend in the current calendar month.
- Last scan: what the most recent API scan cost.
- DataForSEO scans: how many API scans have run.
- Account balance: the live balance on your DataForSEO account, with a Refresh button.
The monthly spend cap
The monthly spend cap field in Settings > DataForSEO takes an amount in US dollars and is the only hard refusal in the app. Once this month’s projected spend, recorded spend plus queued scans and the estimate for the scan you are starting, reaches the cap, API scans are refused and the message names the projected amount. Nothing is submitted to DataForSEO at that point.
Leave the field empty for no cap. Local scans are never refused for spending, and the daily local-scan counter is advisory only. AI agents cannot start API scans past the cap and cannot change the cap itself; only you can, in Settings.
Before every API scan
Before an API scan starts, GeckoGrid runs a pre-flight: it reads your credentials from the OS keychain, runs a free connection test against DataForSEO, and checks that your account balance covers the scan’s estimated cost with a safety margin. If the balance is short, the refusal message says how much you have and roughly what the scan needs.
If the pre-flight fails, the tier is locked, or credentials are missing, the scan does not die: it falls back to a local scan through your browser, with a notice explaining what happened. Scheduled runs keep working the same way.
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