# Credits

> What costs credits in the Emelia API, how much, when credits are refunded, and how to follow your consumption by API.

Source: https://docs.emelia.io/docs/credits

Sending campaigns and calling the API do not cost credits. Enrichment does: finding an email, finding a phone number, verifying an address.

## What each call costs

| Action                                                    | Route                                  | Cost                     | Refunded when                                                                                                                              |
| --------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------- | ------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| [Email Finder](https://docs.emelia.io/docs/enrichment/email-finder.md)             | `POST /tools/find/email`               | 1 credit                 | No email is found, or the search could not start. Not refunded when the search times out.                                                  |
| [Phone Finder](https://docs.emelia.io/docs/enrichment/phone-finder.md)             | `POST /tools/find/phone`               | 50 credits               | No number is found, or the search could not start. A number already found in the last 6 months is served at once and costs 50 credits too. |
| [Email Verifier](https://docs.emelia.io/docs/enrichment/email-verifier.md)         | `POST /tools/verify/email`             | 0.25 credit              | Never, whatever the result.                                                                                                                |
| [Emails of a LinkedIn extraction](https://docs.emelia.io/docs/linkedin-scraper.md) | `POST /linkedin-scrappers/{id}/enrich` | 1 credit per email found | The credits of the contacts without email come back when the enrichment ends.                                                              |

Credits are taken when the job starts, then given back as described above. Lists, contacts, campaigns and exports never cost credits.

## Your balance

Your balance is shown in the Emelia app. When it is too low, enrichment calls fail with a `400`:

```json
{ "error": "You do not have enough credits to perform this action" }
```

Stop the batch at the first one: the next rows would fail the same way.

[Your credits](https://v3.emelia.io/settings/credits)

[See pricing](https://emelia.io/pricing)

## Follow your consumption by API

The credits really consumed are listed, newest first, by:

[`GET /credits/usage`](https://docs.emelia.io/docs/credits/list-credit-debits.md)

**curl**

```bash
curl "https://api.emelia.io/credits/usage?page=1&limit=50" \
  -H "Authorization: $EMELIA_API_KEY"
```

**JavaScript**

```js
const res = await fetch('https://api.emelia.io/credits/usage?page=1&limit=50', {
  headers: { Authorization: process.env.EMELIA_API_KEY },
});
const { items, total } = await res.json();
for (const debit of items) console.log(debit.createdAt, debit.action, debit.amount);
```

**Python**

```python
import os
import requests

res = requests.get(
    "https://api.emelia.io/credits/usage",
    headers={"Authorization": os.environ["EMELIA_API_KEY"]},
    params={"page": 1, "limit": 50},
)
for debit in res.json()["items"]:
    print(debit["createdAt"], debit["action"], debit["amount"])
```

```json title="Response"
{
  "success": true,
  "items": [
    { "_id": "6650f1a2b839d80011c5f101", "amount": 1, "action": "email_finder", "createdAt": "2026-10-11T08:00:30.000Z" }
  ],
  "total": 1,
  "page": 1,
  "totalPages": 1
}
```

`page` starts at 1, `limit` is 50 by default and 200 at most. Refunded debits are not listed: the history shows what you really paid.

## Spend less

* **Filter before you enrich.** Every row you remove before the finder is a credit you keep.
* **Do not verify what the Email Finder returned.** An email found with `qualification: "valid"` was already checked. Verifying it again costs 0.25 credit for the same answer.
* **Skip rows that cannot be found.** No company name means the Email Finder has nothing to search. No LinkedIn profile URL means the Phone Finder cannot run.
* **Never start the same search twice.** A job that is still `running` is not lost: poll its `jobId` instead of sending the request again. See [Enrichment](https://docs.emelia.io/docs/enrichment.md).