Hosted Inference & Billing

Continuum has exactly one thing you can pay for, and it is not the app. The app is free on every client — macOS, Windows, Linux, the continuum CLI, iPhone, Apple Watch, Android, and the web app — for as long as you bring your own provider accounts. Continuum-hosted inference is the optional subscription: instead of connecting your own Claude, Codex, or Cursor logins, you buy inference from Continuum with a weekly budget and a single set of credentials.

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The two ways to run models

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Plans

Prices and weekly budgets as published on continuumcode.ai/pricing: Every plan — including Free — keeps the whole app, every provider via your own keys, and local usage analytics. What the paid tiers add is Continuum-routed frontier models, a weekly spend budget, and personal API keys.

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What “weekly budget” actually means

The window is seven days from when your plan started, not a calendar week. It rolls forward from that same instant — a plan that began Wednesday at 09:14 resets every Wednesday at 09:14. This is deliberately the same absolute-reset shape the provider CLIs use, so a hosted budget and a Claude or Codex weekly limit behave the same way. When the weekly budget runs out, what happens depends on your plan:

• On a paid plan, further usage draws from your prepaid usage balance at pass-through model cost with no markup. If that balance is empty too, requests stop with “Weekly hosted-inference budget reached. Add prepaid funds or upgrade your plan.”
• On the Free plan, the free lane simply stops until the window rolls: “You’ve used this week’s free hosted chat. Upgrade for a larger weekly allowance.”
• In an organization, an admin can cap you below your plan and decide whether you may exceed it. If they capped you with overage off, you’ll see “You’ve reached the hosted-inference allocation your organization set for you. Ask your admin to raise it or enable extra usage.” See Organization & Cloud.

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Free hosted models

Every plan, including Free, can reach a set of free hosted models — and signed-out visitors get one free message per week before signing up. The roster is set by the server, not by the app, so it changes without a client release. Look at the model tray for the live list rather than trusting any written enumeration, including this one. Free models are flagged as such in the tray and grouped under Included in Free, with the paid models under Unlock frontier models.

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Turning it on

Hosted inference appears as a provider named Continuum, alongside Claude, Codex, Cursor, and the rest. If you pick a model your plan doesn’t include, the session refuses to start rather than silently downgrading: “That model needs Continuum hosted inference. Upgrade to Plus, Max, or Ultra — or connect your own provider key.”

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The usage balance (prepaid overage)

The Usage tab carries a Usage balance card — a prepaid wallet that covers usage past your weekly plan budget, drawn at pass-through model cost with no markup.

• Add funds takes $5 to$10,000 and opens Stripe Checkout.
• Auto-top-up adds a fixed amount whenever the balance drops below a threshold you set. It needs a card on file; the card warns you if there isn’t one yet.
• Recent activity is the ledger of top-ups and draws.

The balance is only consulted on paid plans. Free accounts get the upgrade nudge instead of an overage path.

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Personal API keys

Paid plans can mint personal keys that let other tools spend your hosted budget — opencode, Claude Code, Cursor, or anything that speaks the OpenAI or Anthropic HTTP shape. Manage them in the Usage tab under Inference API keys. Create key shows the value exactly once (“Copy your key now. It won’t be shown again”); after that only a prefix…last4 stub is listed, with Revoke next to it. Keys start with cont_sk_. Both API shapes are served from the same base URL, https://continuumcode.ai/v1: Point the usual environment variables at it — OPENAI_BASE_URL / OPENAI_API_KEY, or ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL / ANTHROPIC_API_KEY. The panel prints ready-to-paste snippets. Keys are a paid-plan feature: creating one on a free account returns “Upgrade to a hosted plan to issue an inference API key.”, and the model catalog re-checks entitlement on every call, so a key minted before a downgrade stops seeing paid models.

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What hosted inference means for your data

This is the one lane where prompts reach a Continuum-operated server by definition — that is what you are buying. Be deliberate about it:

• Your prompts and completions traverse Continuum’s gateway on their way to the upstream model. Sessions run through your own provider accounts do not.
• Upstream provider credentials are server-side only. They never reach any client UI, and at rest they are sealed with AES-256-GCM under a key the database never holds.
• The gateway is the enforcement point, not just the UI. Organization model allowlists and spend caps are applied server-side, so a modified or older client cannot route around them.

The full picture — including what is retained and for how long — is on the Privacy page.

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For organizations

An organization admin governs hosted inference for the whole team from Settings → Your Organisation → Hosted inference: which models each team or member may use, weekly and monthly spend caps, whether a member may exceed their cap, comped seats, threshold alerts, and an inbox for members requesting more budget. Those controls are documented in Organization & Cloud.

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See also