Cost Model¶
Free Tier sustainability through the Gas Tank model.
The Economic Prime Directive¶
The Vindicta Platform MUST run on GCP Free Tier. No standing monthly costs.
Gas Tank Model¶
Every operation consumes "gas" (credits):
| Operation | Cost |
|---|---|
| API call | 1 credit |
| Dice roll | 0.1 credits |
| AI prediction | 10 credits |
| Data ingestion | 5 credits |
New users start with a free allocation. Credits replenish daily.
Cost Control¶
The platform enforces:
- Hard limits — Operations fail when credits exhausted
- Soft warnings — Alerts when balance is low
- No debt — Never accrue negative balance
Quota-Aware Scheduling¶
Background tasks use surplus quota:
Human Request Priority: ALWAYS FIRST
Background Priority: Uses remaining quota
Human Reserve: 50% always reserved
Self-Hosting¶
Self-hosted deployments can configure:
- Custom credit allocations
- Unlimited mode (no limits)
- Custom pricing tiers