DFX Intelligence · developer docs

One membership: keys, sign-in, usage and limits

How a DFX membership covers its agents: keys, signed-in connections, allowances per plan, what a call costs, and what happens at a limit.

Short answer

There are no agent plans. An agent you authorize reads what your membership reads and draws on the same allowance as your own use of dfxintel.com, through a key or a signed-in connection.

One membership

Every allowance belongs to the account (its team pool on a team plan) and is shared by the website, the JSON API, the MCP and agent research. A key or a signed-in connection reads exactly what the plan reads on dfxintel.com.

Keys: create one on your account page, send it as Authorization: Bearer dfx_live_... (or X-API-Key). Each key can carry its own monthly budget.
Signed-in connections: clients that cannot send a header (Claude custom connectors, ChatGPT) use https://exchange-production-9123.up.railway.app/mcp/core/member and sign in on dfxintel.com. A connection counts as one of the plan's keys.
Revoke either on the account page; the next call is refused.
Fleets, embedding in another product, redistribution and bulk rows are an Enterprise agreement.

Allowances by plan

Read from the entitlement policy (version 2026-10-11.5), the same file the site and the MCP enforce. Day means the UTC day; month means the paid subscription's own billing month, or the calendar month for a free account.

Plan	Retrieval calls	Research credits	Watches	Agent keys
free account or free key (evaluation)	200 a day, 3,000 a month	10 a month	1 of up to 10 entities	1 key and 1 signed-in connection
7 day trial	400 a day, 2,000 in total	30 in total	1 of up to 25 entities	1, connections included
$199 Desk, one vertical	600 a day, 12,000 a month	40 a month	3 of up to 100 entities	2, connections included
$499 Pro, one vertical	1,200 a day, 24,000 a month	130 a month	10 of up to 250 entities	3, connections included
$599 Data Factory, every vertical	2,000 a day, 40,000 a month	150 a month	25 of up to 1,000 entities	5, connections included
$1,499 Data Factory Team	10,000 a day, 200,000 a month	400 a month	50 of up to 1,000 entities	15, connections included

What a call costs

Use	Charge
An MCP `tools/call` or a JSON API request	1 retrieval unit
`research`	Its depth's read budget is quoted up front and settled down to the reads actually run (`usage.operations`); a continuation page is free
Ask DFX answers (site or agent)	Research credits; a stored repeat answer is free, any new model run counts
`watch_changes`, `watch_reevaluate`	1 watch read each

Every metered MCP answer carries _meta["dfx.usage"]: what the call charged and what is left.

At a limit

A call over an allowance is refused before it runs, whole, never half run. Nothing is billed past the membership; there is no overage.

The refusal body (from the exchange's usage meter)

{
  "ok": false,
  "state": "QUOTA_EXCEEDED",
  "error": "this account's <limit> allowance is used",
  "charged": false,
  "limit": "<meter>_<period>",
  "used": <n>, "quota": <n>, "requested": <n>,
  "resets_at": "<ISO time>",
  "upgrade_plan": "<plan or null>",
  "retry": { "after_seconds": <n or null>, "safe_to_retry": <bool> },
  "how_to_fix": "Wait for the reset, or move to the <plan> plan at https://dfxintel.com/data-factory/plans."
}

A key over its own monthly budget answers the same way with limit: "key_budget".

Without a key

Limit	Value
Calls	20 a minute and 300 an hour per caller
Search and change feeds	60 an hour, shared by tools whose name contains search or changes
Not counted	`initialize` and `tools/list`
Who is a caller	A network, not a user agent: several agents behind one address share one budget
At the limit	`state: RATE_LIMITED` with `retry_after` and `charged: false`

Checked against production on 2026-10-11. The same page as Markdown, for agents: /api/data-factory/v1/docs/membership.