# Limits and plans

> Quotas, what happens at the edge of one, and the error shape every failure uses.

## Plans

| | Free | Pro | Team |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $0 | $49/mo | $399/mo |
| Trials per month | 200 | 5,000 | 50,000 |
| Max sweep points per call | 100 | 1,000 | 5,000 |
| Max universe size | 10 | 50 | 200 |
| Holdout evaluations per month | 1 | 10 | 100 |
| Concurrent jobs | 1 | 4 | 16 |

Read the live values rather than this table — the table is generated from the
same seed but your account is the authority:

```
plans()
account_status()
```

`account_status` returns `trials_used`, `trials_limit`, `trials_remaining`,
`holdouts_limit`, `max_sweep_points`, `max_universe_size` and
`concurrent_jobs` for your principal.

## Why trials are the metered unit

A trial is the scarce thing on this server. Every trial permanently raises the
bar your own future results must clear — that is what an append-only ledger
means. Metering the thing that carries the statistical cost puts the price on
the same side as the discipline: a sweep of 2,000 configurations is expensive
here because it is expensive to your statistics.

Compute is not the constraint being priced. Overfitting is.

## What consumes a trial

| Call | Trials consumed |
|---|---|
| `backtest_submit` | 1 |
| `backtest_cross_section` | 1, regardless of universe size |
| `sweep_submit` | one per configuration |
| A spec already evaluated | 0 — deduplicated by hash |
| `execution_replay_submit` | 0 — a replay adds nothing to the ledger |
| `holdout_evaluate` | 0 trials, but consumes the one-shot |
| Every read tool | 0 |

`gate_check`, `experiment_ledger`, `server_status`, `account_status`,
`plans`, `data_catalog`, `universe_catalog`, `library_search`, `library_get`,
`case_studies`, `backtest_result` and `job_status` consume nothing.

## At the edge of a quota

The quota is checked **before** the work runs, not after. A quota that only
bit once trials were already in the ledger would leave the ledger holding
trials the caller was told they could not make.

Replays are checked before the quota rather than against it, because a replay
adds no trials and must not be billed as though it did.

## Error shape

Every failure a caller could plausibly fix is raised as a structured error,
never a stack trace:

```json
{
  "error": "quota_exceeded",
  "reason": "a sweep of 400 points would exceed the Free monthly trial quota; 187 of 200 used",
  "remediation": "reduce max_points to 13 or fewer, or upgrade the plan"
}
```

`error` and `reason` are always present. `remediation` is present whenever
there is a concrete next action.

| `error` | Meaning |
|---|---|
| `not_authenticated` | No bearer token, or one the server does not recognise |
| `quota_exceeded` | The call would exceed a plan limit; nothing was recorded |
| `bad_request` | An argument cannot be used; `reason` says which |
| `not_found` | No such run, strategy, split, family or universe |
| `insufficient_data` | The range holds too few bars for this computation |
| `immutable` | Attempt to modify something registered as fixed, such as split ranges |
| `holdout_locked` | The holdout is not readable; the strategy is not frozen |
| `holdout_spent` | This strategy's one holdout evaluation is already used |
| `strategy_frozen` | Attempt to modify a frozen spec |
| `not_frozen` | `holdout_evaluate` called before `strategy_freeze` |
| `upstream_error` | A venue API failed; the cost model or candles are unavailable |
| `quant_error` | Base class; a failure with no more specific code |

## Asynchronous work

`backtest_submit`, `backtest_cross_section`, `sweep_submit`, `data_ingest`,
`data_ingest_universe` and `execution_replay_submit` return a `job_id`
immediately. Poll `job_status`.

Nothing returns bulk data. Return series are resources, addressed as
`quant://runs/{run_id}/returns`, not tool output.

## Quota reset

Trial and holdout quotas are counted per calendar month.

The **ledger does not reset**. N is monotonic for the life of a family
regardless of billing period — a new month buys you more trials, not a lower
multiple-testing hurdle. Those are deliberately different things.