What's free

Which tool calls never cost anything, which refusals happen before any hold, and when a billed "not found" answer is still charged.

Always free

search, search_catalog, discover, inspect, catalog_overview, balance and reading your run history (runs_get, runs_list, runs_evidence) never cost anything. discover_smart is the one paid search tool, well under a cent per call: ask before you use it.

Refused for free, $0, no hold

These never reach a provider:

• invalid_input: a top-level email, url, domain or phone value fails the basic check on a job run. See Job inputs.
• needs_input: no provider of the job accepts the input you sent.
• unknown_job: the job:<id> you sent does not exist.
• no_supply_for_job: no endpoint in the catalog does this job.
• no_runnable_provider: the job exists, but nothing can run for this workspace right now.
• route_capped, route_no_fit: a fallback route where no provider was called at all. error.message reads “No provider was called, so nothing was charged.”
• Any other validation_error: a malformed argument.

See Jobs and Fallback for the full refusal codes.

Also never charged

A provider error, a 402 on looot’s own key, and a rejected call (your input or your own key refused) are never charged, whether on a direct run or inside a fallback route. A failed run always settles at $0 with its hold released. See Holds.

A billed “not found” is still a charge

Not every miss is free. Some providers bill a flat rate on every call regardless of what they found, or bill the volume you requested. A “not found” answer from one of those is charged and listed in route.summary like any other attempt. In a job:<id> run, providers that only bill on a found result are tried first, and free rows lead the order; see Free first for exactly how that ordering works and why it never raises your total.

Worked example

job:people.email.find on {"email": "jane.doe@example.com"} with fallback might try a free row first (charged $0, miss), then a per-call finder that bills regardless (charged $0.0089, hit). route.summary reads "freefinder: not found ($0). tomba: found ($0.0089). Charged $0.0089."