How IU billing works

What an Intelligence Unit pays for, what stays free, the plans, and a calculator for your month.

Semicola takes 0% of media. It charges for intelligent work, measured in Intelligence Units (IUs). Every price is published on the rate card before you act, so nothing meters silently.

What costs IUs

Rate Card v4 has exactly three activities. Each starts at the catalog price below; your plan then applies its own terms, and only the Rate Card your organization accepted can consume IUs.

Activity	Starting rate	When it is charged
Brief response	1 IU per response	One completed merchandising cycle by a hosted storefront agent.
Enhanced Reporting	4 IUs per account, per period	One connected account per billing period, once Enhanced Reporting is on and its reporting has synced.
Semicola Exchange media buy	1 IU per buy, per period	One qualifying non-social media buy per billing period with impressions or spend.

The standard plans waive Enhanced Reporting, so it shows its 4-IU catalog price but draws nothing. Accepting a plan freezes its Rate Card: a newer card never reprices an agreement you already have. Integrations read the organization’s offer, plans and resolved schedule from GET /api/v2/billing/iu-rate-card/v4 (organization admins).

What stays free

• Listing your own storefront.
• Connecting to sellers, discovering products and mapping accounts.
• Requesting proposals from sellers. (The seller’s storefront agent response is billed to the seller.)
• Reading delivery and reports.

Plans

Plan	Monthly fee	Included IUs	Beyond the included IUs
Pay as you go	none	none	$5 per IU
250	$1,000	250	$5 per IU
1,000	$3,000	1,000	$5 per IU

Custom plans are available for larger organizations. New organizations receive a one-time grant of 100 setup IUs that expires 60 days later. Committed plans carry unused IUs into the next period only, up to 50% of that period’s included quantity.

Worked examples

A buyer running six campaigns. Six non-social media buys had spend this month: 6 IUs. On the metered plan that is $30.

A publisher answering briefs. The storefront agent answered 180 briefs and the storefront had no buys of its own: 180 IUs. Pay as you go costs $900; the 250 plan costs$1,000 and leaves 70 IUs to spare.

Calculator

Where to see it

Settings → Plan & billing shows the balance, IUs used this period, projected month-end usage, the published price list and any next step, such as accepting terms or adding a payment method. Billing is managed by organization admins; child accounts see “Billing is handled at the organization level”.