Pricing

Every job in Dispatch has a price denominated in USD, settled in stablecoins (USDC) via x402 micropayments. Prices are determined by the combination of policy tier and job type.

Pricing tiers

const PRICING_MAP: Record<string, string> = {
  FAST_LLM_INFER: "$0.010",
  FAST_TASK:      "$0.003",
  CHEAP_LLM_INFER: "$0.005",
  CHEAP_TASK:     "$0.001",
};

Policy

The Policy enum controls which pricing tier a job uses:

enum Policy {
  FAST  = "FAST",
  CHEAP = "CHEAP",
  AUTO  = "AUTO",
}

AUTO resolution

AUTO is the default policy. It resolves based on job type:

• LLM_INFER jobs resolve to FAST (optimizes for speed)
• TASK jobs resolve to CHEAP (optimizes for cost)

function resolvePolicy(policy: Policy, jobType: JobType): Policy.FAST | Policy.CHEAP {
  if (policy !== Policy.AUTO) return policy;
  return jobType === JobType.LLM_INFER ? Policy.FAST : Policy.CHEAP;
}

How pricing works in practice

1. Get a quote

Before committing a job, get a quote to see the price and which endpoint to use:

curl "http://localhost:4010/v1/quote?job_type=LLM_INFER&policy=AUTO"

{
  "price": "$0.010",
  "endpoint": "/v1/jobs/commit/fast",
  "policy_resolved": "FAST",
  "network": "eip155:10143",
  "expires_at": null
}

The endpoint field tells you which commit URL to use. This matches the resolved policy tier.

2. Pay via x402

When x402 payment gating is enabled, the commit endpoint returns 402 Payment Required on the first request. The response includes payment details:

{
  "error": "X-PAYMENT header is required",
  "accepts": [
    {
      "scheme": "exact",
      "price": "$0.010",
      "network": "eip155:10143",
      "payTo": "0x...",
      "asset": "0x534b..."
    }
  ]
}

The SDK handles this automatically. It signs a stablecoin payment and retries with the X-PAYMENT header.

3. Testnet mode

In testnet mode (TESTNET_MODE=true), x402 payment gating is off. Jobs submit without any payment. Use this for development and testing.

Price calculation

The getPrice() function looks up the price from the pricing map:

function getPrice(policy: Policy.FAST | Policy.CHEAP, jobType: JobType): string {
  const key = `${policy}_${jobType}`;
  return PRICING_MAP[key] ?? "$0.001";
}

The key is constructed as {POLICY}_{JOB_TYPE}, e.g., FAST_LLM_INFER or CHEAP_TASK.

x402 payment configuration

The coordinator builds x402 payment configs for each endpoint:

• POST /v1/jobs/commit/fast: priced at FAST tier
• POST /v1/jobs/commit/cheap: priced at CHEAP tier

Payment is settled in USDC on the configured chain (Monad or Solana). See x402 Payments for the full protocol details.

Staking Tier Effects

BOLT staking tiers affect which job tiers a worker can access:

Open-tier workers only receive CHEAP tier jobs (tasks like summarization, classification, extraction). Verified and Sentinel workers can receive both CHEAP and FAST tier jobs, including LLM inference.

Private jobs require trust pairing regardless of stake tier. Staking doesn't bypass the privacy model.

Sentinels also receive a share of protocol revenue from the 5% BOLT fee collected on every job (planned).