# `AI_APICallError: 402 Payment Required — Insufficient balance or daily spend cap reached`

**Where it appears:** Terminal or Vercel runtime logs

**What it means:** Tokentide refused the request before running it because your prepaid balance ran out or your key hit its daily spending cap.

## Likely causes

- The low-cap development key reached the daily limit you set for safety.
- Your Tokentide account balance needs a top-up at tokentide.app/app/billing (from $10).

## Message for your agent

```text
Tokentide returned `402`. Verify that our AI client has `maxRetries: 0` on Tokentide and automatically falls back to the Vercel AI Gateway on 402 so users aren't interrupted while I check my balance or cap.
```

**Prevention:** Enable balance alerts on tokentide.app/app/billing and always configure the Vercel AI Gateway fallback.

---
Source: [Agentic Makers](https://agenticmakers.app/en/help/errors/tokentide-402-insufficient-credit-or-spend-cap) · License: CC BY 4.0