# Balance and exhausted quota

What happens when a ByteKit bandwidth or credit balance reaches zero.

ByteKit checks the relevant balance before admitting billable work. Capture endpoints use the bandwidth balance; search uses the credit balance; schema extraction requires both.

When a request would exceed an enforced balance, ByteKit returns **HTTP 402** with the error code `quota_exceeded`. The request does not continue as unpriced usage.

There is no automatic overage: availability is an explicit plan setting, reported as the `has_overage` field on your plan (`GET /v1/account`, `GET /v1/plans`) and on `GET /v1/usage`. No standard plan enables it — Starter, Growth and Scale report `has_overage: false`, so a credit-metered request past the included allowance is refused with 402 `quota_exceeded` rather than admitted as billable overage. Only a custom plan arranged with ByteKit can enable overage; on such a plan a configured spending cap can permit or reject additional usage, returning 402 `spending_cap_reached` when the cap is crossed. Capture endpoints still enforce their bandwidth budget.

## Starter grant

A new pay-as-you-go account receives a one-time starter grant when it is first created: **100 MB of bandwidth and 100 credits**. It is issued once per account, is not a purchase, and does not expire. Granted value is spent last — after your plan's included allowance and after any purchased top-up — so a top-up you paid for is never consumed while free grant remains.

`GET /v1/billing/balance` reports the grant separately from purchases: `granted_topup_bytes` and `granted_topup_credits` hold the grant, `purchased_topup_bytes` and `purchased_topup_credits` hold what you bought, and `topup_bytes` / `topup_credits` are the two added together.

To continue after a hard balance stop, purchase a top-up or move to a plan with more included usage. Auto-top-up can add funds to your USD balance when your remaining value drops below the configured dollar threshold, but it must be enabled and configured in advance; reaching zero does not silently enable it.

See **Dashboard → Settings → Billing** for included usage, purchased and rollover balances, and auto-top-up status.