---
title: Topping up
description: How to add money to your Wallet, what the three amounts are, what happens the first time, and what to do if checkout fails.
---

You add money to your Wallet whenever you like, in one of three amounts, through a
secure checkout page. There is nothing to set up first and nothing to cancel later —
Else has no subscription, so a top-up is a one-off payment and never a recurring one.

Else also never tops up on your behalf. Money enters your Wallet only when you start a
top-up yourself.

## Where the Wallet is

Two ways in:

- Go to **/wallet** directly.
- Or open **Settings → Money and data → Wallet**, described there as *"Your balance,
  top-ups and receipts"*, and press **Open**.

The page shows your **Balance** — what is available to spend right now — above the
three top-up options.

## The three amounts

| Amount | |
| --- | --- |
| **$5** | |
| **$20** | most popular |
| **$100** | for heavy use — same fair price |

These are amounts of money you are adding, not prices for anything. How much work a
given amount buys depends entirely on which model runs, and that varies by more than a
hundredfold across the models you can pick — so we deliberately do not translate a
top-up into "about N tasks". [Model prices](/docs/model-prices) gives you the actual rates,
and every run's [receipt](/docs/reading-a-receipt) gives you the actual amount.

The `$100` option costs no more per dollar than the `$5` one. There is no volume
discount and no penalty for topping up small.

## What happens when you press Continue

Choosing an amount opens a short confirmation, then:

1. You press **Continue to checkout**.
2. Else takes you to a secure checkout page to complete the payment.
3. When you finish, you come back to the Wallet with a confirmation:
   *"Thanks — your payment is on its way. It may take a minute to show up."*

Read that last sentence literally. **The balance is not always updated the instant you
return.** The payment and the crediting of your Wallet are separate steps, and the
second can lag the first by a short while. If the number has not moved yet, reload the
page in a minute rather than paying again.

If you back out instead, you return to *"Checkout was cancelled. No charge was made."*

## The first time you top up

Nothing extra to do. The first top-up opens your Wallet account as part of the same
action — there is no separate setup step, no form, and no waiting for approval. You
choose an amount and go to checkout exactly as you would the second time.

## If something goes wrong

Every failure is reported in plain language rather than an error code. The ones you may
see:

| What you see | What it means |
| --- | --- |
| *That amount isn't valid. Please try one of the options above.* | The amount was rejected. Pick one of the three options. |
| *We couldn't set up your wallet just now. Please try again in a moment.* | Your Wallet account could not be opened this time. This is usually transient — try again shortly. |
| *Payments aren't available right now. Please try again shortly.* | Payments are temporarily unavailable on our side. Nothing was charged. |
| *A top-up for a different amount is already in progress. Please finish or wait for that one first.* | You started a top-up for a different amount and have not finished it. Complete or abandon that one first — this exists so you cannot accidentally pay twice. |
| *Something went wrong starting checkout. Please try again.* | Checkout could not be started. Nothing was charged. |

In every one of these cases you were not charged: the failures all happen **before**
payment, while the checkout is being set up. If you reached the checkout page itself and
something failed there, check your Wallet balance before retrying.

## About your balance

**It never expires.** There is no monthly reset, no use-it-or-lose-it window, and no
inactivity charge. Money you put in stays there until work uses it.

**There is no refund path.** Money already spent on work that ran stays spent, and
unused balance cannot currently be withdrawn. We would rather say that here than let you
discover it later — see [When a run fails](/docs/when-a-run-fails).

Because of that, the honest advice is to top up in the amount you actually expect to
use rather than pre-loading a large balance, and to keep run limits low while you are
still learning what your kind of work costs.

## Where to look next

- [How billing works](/docs/how-billing-works) — what your balance is actually spent on
- [Model prices](/docs/model-prices) — the rate for every model, and what each tier runs
- [Spending limits](/docs/spending-limits) — where the limit you set is read, and where it is not