FAQ

Accounts and credits#

Is PortModels free to use? Creating an account and browsing the gallery is free. Running apps spends credits, because running apps spends real model capacity.

What is a credit worth? 1 credit = 1 USD. Model calls are priced in credits and drawn from your balance. See Buying credits.

Do credits expire? No. Your balance sits there until you spend it.

Why did an app cost more than I expected? Longer inputs and outputs cost more, and the developer's markup sits on top of the model price. Your usage log shows the per-call breakdown.

Do I need a separate balance for each app? No. One account, one balance, every app.

Using apps#

Who wrote the apps in the gallery? Third-party developers. Every listing is reviewed before it goes live, but the app itself is the developer's product. See Your data.

What does an app see about me? A scoped token — never your password, and never more than the scopes you approved. Email is only shared when an app requests the separate profile.email permission.

How do I stop an app from having access? Disconnect it from Connected apps. Its token stops working immediately.

Does disconnecting delete my data? No. The app loses access; what it stored stays until it is deleted. Many apps offer a "delete my data" control — use it before disconnecting if you want both.

Publishing#

What does it cost to publish? Nothing. You keep the revenue from your markup — see Earnings and payouts.

How long does review take? Listings are reviewed by a person, so it isn't instant. Editing a live listing's link, description, or category sends it back to pending.

Can I ship a downloadable app, not a web app? Yes. Use the device flow for anything without a browser redirect — CLIs, desktop apps, TV apps.

Can I use my own models or my own API keys? Your app calls PortModels and PortModels handles providers. That is the point of the integration: one API, one billing path, and users who already have a balance.

API and Connect#

What's the difference between pm_ and pmc_? pm_ is your personal API key and spends your credits. pmc_ is a Connect token your app receives for a user and spends theirs. See Authentication.

Is the API OpenAI-compatible? The chat, image, and models endpoints follow the OpenAI request and response shapes, so most SDKs work by changing the base URL. Responses add a usage.cost field in credits.

Can I pass temperature, tools, response_format? Yes. Anything that isn't a reserved routing parameter is forwarded to the provider as-is.

Are there rate limits? 60 requests per minute per IP on the OpenAI-compatible endpoints, with a retry-after header on 429. See Rate limits.