Credits

API credit costs, pricing, and credit packs

Vaquill bills the API in credits. One credit = $0.01 USD. Every endpoint has a fixed credit cost - per call, regardless of result size - and your balance updates in real time on the dashboard.

New accounts start with 500 free credits ($5). No credit card required. Sign up at app.vaquill.ai.

Credit packs

Buy in bulk for a built-in bonus. Larger packs unlock larger bonuses.

Starter

1,000 credits for $10

No bonus. Best for testing.

Builder

2,500 credits for $25

No bonus. Best for early dev.

Pro

5,500 credits for $50

+10% bonus credits. Best for production apps.

Scale

25,000 credits for $200

+25% bonus credits. Best for high-volume teams.

Custom amounts are available at $0.01 per credit (no bonus). Enterprise volume pricing and invoicing on request.

Costs by endpoint

Grouped by capability so you can model your application’s per-query cost before you build.

Ask (legal Q&A)

The flagship endpoint. Routes a question through the full retrieval and generation pipeline and returns a grounded answer with cited sources.

Endpoint	Method	Credits	USD
/api/v1/ask	POST	15	$0.15
/api/v1/ask (deep mode)	POST	30	$0.30
/api/v1/ask/stream	POST	15 / 30	Same as sync

Use standard mode for fast single-hop answers; switch to deep for multi-hop reasoning across sources.

Research and search

Boolean and natural-language search over the legal corpus.

Endpoint	Method	Credits	USD
/api/v1/research/search (1-20 results)	POST	1	$0.01
/api/v1/research/search (21-50 results)	POST	2	$0.02
/api/v1/research/search (51-100 results)	POST	3	$0.03
/api/v1/research/quick	POST	1	$0.01

The quick endpoint returns the top 3-5 results with essentials only.

Citations

Resolve, look up, search, and traverse the citation network.

Endpoint	Method	Credits	USD
/api/v1/citations/resolve	GET	1	$0.01
/api/v1/citations/cases/search	GET	1	$0.01
/api/v1/citations/cases/lookup	GET	1	$0.01
/api/v1/citations/cases/network	GET	5	$0.05

Network traversal is the priciest because it walks multiple hops in the citation graph.

US statutes (USC + CFR)

Semantic search over the United States Code and Code of Federal Regulations.

Endpoint	Method	Credits	USD
/api/v1/statutes/search	POST	4	$0.04
/api/v1/statutes/section	GET	2	$0.02
/api/v1/statutes/section/body	GET	6	$0.06

Section metadata is cheaper than the full section body.

Indian acts and legislation

Indian central and state legislation lookup.

Endpoint	Method	Credits	USD
/api/v1/acts/list	GET	1	$0.01
/api/v1/acts/search	POST	2	$0.02
/api/v1/acts/{actId}/text	GET	3	$0.03
/api/v1/acts/{actId}/amendments	GET	5	$0.05

Optimize cost by choosing the right endpoint. For a hit-or-miss query, start with /research/quick ($0.01) before falling back to `/ask` ($0.15). For citation resolution, the resolve endpoint is 15x cheaper than asking the LLM to do it.

Checking your balance

View remaining credits in your developer settings. When credits reach zero, API calls return 403.

Out-of-credit calls return 403 Forbidden, not 402. Handle both in your error logic, or top up before you hit zero with auto-recharge in your dashboard.

Notes

• Credits do not expire - buy in bulk without worrying about a use-or-lose deadline.
• Signup bonus: 500 credits ($5), no credit card required.
• All pricing is in USD.
• Bulk or enterprise pricing available - contact [e-mail].

Where the data comes from

US case law on Vaquill is powered by CourtListener, a service of the Free Law Project - a US 501(c)(3) non-profit. Their open data makes Vaquill’s US case-law layer possible. If you build on the Vaquill API, please consider donating to Free Law Project - the open legal-data ecosystem only exists because they keep it alive.

See Data Sources & Attribution for the full list of upstream sources.

Related

Authentication

Generate and rotate API keys.

Errors

HTTP status codes and recovery paths.

API Reference

Every endpoint with parameters and examples.

Pricing endpoint

Fetch the live pricing schedule programmatically.

Data sources

Open data partners (CourtListener / Free Law Project) and how to support them.