Returns the current API credit balance for the authenticated account, plus the automatic top-up state of the account (autoTopup: configured, enabled, pack, monthly charge cap and count, last error) so an agent can tell whether a zero balance is a hard stop or refills itself on the next billable call. Free to call. Agents should check the balance before starting large batch jobs and surface "insufficient_credits" errors to the user with a link to top up.
A free endpoint that returns the authenticated account's current API credit balance. Billing is prepaid (1 credit = $0.01), and every billable call draws down the balance, so this is the number an agent checks before committing to a large batch of work. It never costs credits to read.
Connect the Viral Outliers MCP server once and the get_credit_balance tool becomes available to your agent alongside all other skills:
claude mcp add --transport http viral-outliers https://viraloutliers.com/api/mcp \
--header "Authorization: Bearer so_live_YOUR_KEY"In Claude.ai or ChatGPT, add a custom connector pointing at https://viraloutliers.com/api/mcp. Your agent then calls get_credit_balance on its own whenever the task needs it.
It returns the current credit balance for the account behind the API key. Credits come from a subscription's monthly allowance and from one-time top-up packs (starting at $15), and they are spent on billable skills: 1 credit for a search or lookup, 10 for a transcription, 40 for a full profile crawl.
Reading the balance is free. Calls hard-stop at a zero balance rather than running up a bill, so knowing the number ahead of time lets an agent size its work to what it can actually afford.
Check it before a batch run and cap the batch to the credits available, so a job does not stall halfway through on an insufficient_credits error. Surface the number to the user when a task is about to spend a lot, and pair it with create_topup_link so that when the balance is low the agent can hand the owner a one-click way to add more.
It also closes the loop after a top-up: poll get_credit_balance until the newly purchased credits land (they arrive within seconds of payment), then resume the paused work automatically.
This skill is free and never spends credits.
In prepaid credits: searches and lookups cost 1 credit, transcription 10, a full profile crawl 40. Subscriptions include a monthly allowance and one-time top-up packs are available in Settings. No surprise bills, hard stop at zero.
Billable calls stop with a machine-readable insufficient_credits error instead of running up a bill, so you can never overspend. Free skills (status polling, balance checks, bug reports) keep working, and you can restore billable access instantly with a top-up pack via create_topup_link.
Also available as a REST API endpoint.
Related topics: usage-based API pricing · prepaid API billing · API budget guardrails · credit balance monitoring