Starting a commercial service

This page is for anyone who charges other people for something built on the AICU API — an app, a bot, a SaaS, a paid Discord — or who runs it inside a company. It says what changes for you, what we ask you to confirm, and what we do on our side.

:::info Work in progress Production operation begins on 2026-09-23. Items marked coming are being rolled out this month; the rest is live today. :::

1. What "commercial" means here

You are using the API commercially when any of these is true:

• you charge end users money (subscriptions, credits, one-off purchases) for a feature that calls the API;
• you use it inside a business, for customers or staff, even without a separate charge;
• you resell access, or expose our models to third parties under your own brand.

Personal projects, coursework and evaluation are not commercial. Education has its own class. If you are unsure, pick commercial: it changes nothing about price.

2. Your account, step by step

Step	Where	Status
Declare your usage class (personal / commercial / internal / education)	Dashboard → Settings	coming
Put a card on file	Dashboard → Billing	live
Issue a production key (aicu_live_) — server-issued once a card is on file	Dashboard → API keys	live
Choose what happens when the balance runs out: pause and notify (default) or auto top-up	Dashboard → API keys	coming
Confirm the legal items for your country (below)	Dashboard → Settings	coming

Until the usage-class switch ships, declare commercial use by replying to any email from us or writing to assistant@aicu.ai (English) or info@aicu.jp (日本語).

Prepaid, and what happens at zero

The platform is prepaid. When the balance reaches zero the API returns 402 with code: "insufficient_ap" and the request is not served. Nothing is charged while paused and no invoice follows. The account owner gets one email per day on any day the account paused — in Japanese from our Japan reseller AICU Japan K.K. (info@aicu.jp) for accounts in Japan, in English from AICU Inc. (assistant@aicu.ai) everywhere else.

If you would rather never pause, enable auto top-up on the key (a card on file is required). Every successful response also carries X-AICU-AP-Cost and X-AICU-AP-Balance, so your own code can watch the balance without polling GET /v1/usage/credits.

Who sells to you

You are in	Seller of record	Currency	Contact
Japan	AICU Japan K.K. (reseller; qualified invoices / 適格請求書 available)	JPY	info@aicu.jp
Anywhere else	AICU Inc. (Delaware, USA)	USD	assistant@aicu.ai

3. Your legal obligations

You are responsible for the service you put in front of your users. We ask you to confirm the items that apply to you; we do not give legal advice, and this list is a starting point, not a substitute for counsel.

Everyone

• Our Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy.
• The usage policies of the upstream model providers you route to (OpenAI, Google, ElevenLabs, Stability, Sakura). They apply to your end users through you.
• Disclose to your users that content is AI-generated where the law or the platform they are on requires it.
• Keep API keys server-side. A key in a browser or a mobile binary is a key that belongs to whoever finds it.

Japan (日本の事業者)

• 特定商取引法 — 事業者名・所在地・連絡先・価格・支払時期・返品条件などの表示。
• 景品表示法 — 優良誤認・有利誤認となる表示の禁止（「無制限」「最高精度」などの根拠）。
• 消費者契約法 — 消費者に一方的に不利な条項の無効、クーリングオフ相当の扱い。
• 個人情報保護法 — 利用目的の明示、第三者提供（当社および上流プロバイダへの送信を含む）の説明。
• 資金決済法 — 自社でポイント・前払い式のクレジットを販売する場合。

United States

• FTC Act §5 (unfair or deceptive practices), state consumer-protection and auto-renewal laws, and COPPA if minors may use your service.

European Union / United Kingdom

• GDPR / UK GDPR for personal data you send us; the EU AI Act transparency duties for AI-generated content where they apply.

4. Building a service on the platform (tenants)

If your service is offered to the public under AICU's brand or inside AICU properties — for example a feature on aicu.ai, a character bot we host, or a marketplace listing — it is a tenant service and needs approval before it runs. This is how we keep responsibility clear: every public service on the platform has a named owner, a legal home and a review on file.

The flow, in order:

1. Propose — open a "Service intake" issue in the platform repository with what you offer, who calls it, which countries, and how you handle personal data and pricing display.
2. Review — we check the upstream terms, the legal items above for your countries, support contact and stop conditions.
3. Fee — tenant services pay a platform fee on top of usage. The model (revenue share, markup or flat) is agreed in the review.
4. Approval — the service is recorded as approved with an owner and date. Only then can a tenant billing account issue keys, and only then does the service appear in our docs and news.
5. Operate — usage is metered per billing account; a monthly statement covers usage and fee.

Services that are not approved are not listed and cannot obtain tenant keys. Your own commercial app that merely calls the API under your own brand is not a tenant and does not need approval — steps 1–3 of this page are enough.

5. Checklist before launch

• Card on file and a production aicu_live_ key issued
• Pause-and-notify or auto top-up chosen for each key
• Usage class declared, legal items for your country confirmed
• Keys stored server-side; per-key daily spend cap set for anything user-facing
• Your own terms and pricing page published (特商法表示 if you sell in Japan)
• Support contact published, and you know ours: assistant@aicu.ai / info@aicu.jp

Questions about any step: reply to any email from us, or open an issue. We answer in Japanese or English.