"Free" Marketing Claims - Undisclosed Usage Limits Causing Service Interruptions

[Vijay-konakeri]

I built a chatbot using Puter services — Puter Auth for login, KV Store for chat history, and the Claude 4 model for chatbot logic — on my app cascur.app. During integration and testing, I found that Puter advertises its AI service as “free”, but hidden usage limits appear after a short period of use. This is misleading and negatively impacts the user experience.

Expected

• Clear documentation of all usage limits
• Transparent pricing or quota details
• Honest marketing that reflects real service constraints

Actual

• Service promoted as “free”
• Hidden usage limits trigger unexpectedly after minimal usage
• No visible documentation or communication about these limits

Request Please either:

• Remove hidden limits to provide a truly free service, or
• Clearly document all usage restrictions and pricing details upfront
• Transparency is essential for developer trust and for proper application planning.

[jelveh]

Hi @Vijay-konakeri, thank you so much for using Puter.js in your awesome project. Cascur looks great! Please do add it to Puter as well. I'd love to approve it for our app store.

We've invented what's called the "User-Pays Model," which means your users will cover their own costs when using your app: this means that your app is not going cost you anything to run, no matter how many users you have. This is explained in tutorials and also here, if you want to learn more. That said, when you're testing you're app, you're also, technically, the user of your app, so your free credits (as a user) run out at some point, which in a few instances has caused confusion about the user-pays model.

My immediate thought is that we should probably give verified developers more credits so that they can easily develop and test their apps. Another solution is to explain the model first time a developer is integrating puter.js in their project. Thoughts?

[Vijay-konakeri]

Hi,

Thank you so much for the kind words and for the detailed explanation of the User-Pays Model — really appreciate it. I completely understand how the model works now, and it makes a lot of sense.

I wanted to let you know that I’ve deployed the project on Cascur running on Vertical OS it's look great, and I’ve integrated Puter.js as discussed. The app is now ready to be listed.

I’ve added Cascur to Puter and would love for you to review and approve it for the Puter App Store when you get a chance. Please let me know if there’s anything else I need to update or adjust from my side.

Also, I really like your idea of providing additional credits for verified developers or explaining the model clearly during initial integration — that would definitely help avoid confusion during development and testing.

Looking forward to your feedback

Thanks again for your support!

Best regards,
Vijay Konakeri

[jelveh]

Thank you so much @Vijay-konakeri for building Cascur! I just approved your awesome app to be listed on the App Center: https://apps.puter.com/app/cascur/

And yes, we're planning to give more credits to verified developers, this is hopefully coming soon. In the meantime, let me know if you have any questions.