Local verify is free

Passkey continuity costs nothing: unlimited verifies, no card required. Free forever, not a trial. You pay only when your policy requires a human proof or site-block enforcement.

Verify signed presentations locally and enforce on a site-private ID. That part is free. When new-account abuse is the problem, require isHuman on the same integration: fifty cents per user once (verification included), then three cents for each month they renew.

$0 Passkey continuity / local verify, unlimited
$0.50 per human-proof user, once. Verification included
$0.03 per human-proof MAU, starting month two

How billing works

Passkey continuity is free with no user caps. Day-to-day proof checks run on your own servers and are never metered. Billing starts only when your policy requires a human proof: you pay once when the user binds (identity verification included), then a small monthly fee in months where that user renews. Users who already verified on another lemma.id-enabled site skip the ID ceremony at binding.

Monthly active user

$0.03 / user / month

Applies to human-proof users only. Billed for calendar months where a returning user renews their credential, starting the month after binding. If a user goes quiet for three months, you pay nothing for those three months.

Local verification

Free

Your servers validate credentials themselves with the SDK: signature, expiry, revocation. No network call, no meter, no limit. Your millionth check this month costs the same as your first. Credentials expire after 30 days, and renewal is a quick lemma.id popup for the user.

Doubt re-entry

$0.33 / user

Charged only when a user you challenged with site doubt passes a fresh identity verification. Use doubt to force a re-check without a permanent ban. No charge unless they clear the challenge.

Billing rules

  1. Passkey continuity (free): local verify and presentation minting are never billed. No user caps, no metering, no card on file. Billing only enters when your policy requires a human proof.
  2. Human proof binding ($0.50, verification included): one-time fee for the user's first human-proof credential on your site. The identity check is included in the fifty cents. There is no separate IDV charge and no markup hiding in it.
  3. MAU ($0.03): billed for each calendar month a human-proof user renews after the month they bound. The binding month itself is never billed as an MAU.
  4. What counts as active: a user whose credential is re-issued that month, which normally happens when the old one expires after about 30 days and they complete the renewal popup. Daily local checks never count toward this.
  5. Same lemma.id, same PPID: renewals issue a fresh credential with the same site-private PPID, so routine continuity never triggers repeat verification. If a user steps up to a human proof later, the PPID stays stable through that too.
  6. Doubt re-entry ($0.33): billed only when a doubted user passes fresh IDV after a site-doubt challenge. If they fail or abandon, you pay nothing for that attempt.
  7. Local checks: unlimited presentations and verifications on your own infrastructure between renewals, never metered.
  8. Per site: each relying site is billed for its own users. PPIDs are pairwise, so there's nothing to correlate between sites.

Example: 1,000 users step up to human proofs in January, 600 return in February

January: 1,000 × $0.50 = $500, verification included. No MAU charges yet, since the binding month is excluded.

February: 600 returning human-proof users × $0.03 = $18.00, plus $0.50 for each user who newly steps up that month.

Worth noting: a user who verifies every single day still counts as one MAU in a month, because billing follows renewals, not verify calls. Every user who stays on passkey continuity only costs nothing, forever.

What the paid tier actually buys

Free continuity already gives you local verify with nothing sensitive to store. The fifty cents buys what no auth provider gives you: a durable, private handle on the verified person behind the account, so a ban costs the abuser something real, and none of their identity data sits on your servers.

Already verified users convert faster. Someone who proved they're human on another lemma.id site clears your gate without a new ID ceremony. Every integrator on the network makes signup smoother for the next.
Verifiable audit stamps. Stamp checkouts, posts, and moderation actions with offline-verifiable proof a verified human did it. Evidence stays in your systems. See docs.
Challenge without banning. Site doubt forces fresh IDV on a suspect PPID without a permanent block. $0.33 only if they pass the challenge.
A ban that holds. The same lemma.id always presents the same PPID, and with a human proof that PPID is backed by the same verified person. Routine visits never trigger repeat verification.
Recognition with no round trip. Checks run on your servers in about a millisecond. Users don't see anything, and neither does the network.
Nothing to leak. Documents, names, and biometrics never reach your servers, which keeps them out of your compliance scope and your breach headlines.
Pairwise-private across sites. PPIDs are designed so relying sites cannot correlate your users with the same person on anyone else's site.
User-held lemma.id. The credential belongs to the person, secured by a passkey from first use. You're never its custodian.
Revocation you control. Block a PPID and the block syncs across your integration. Credentials run 30 days and renew monthly.
Less data everywhere. See the trust page for exactly who holds what.
The platform comes with it. Site registration, API keys, the JavaScript SDK, block controls, and the developer dashboard, at no extra charge.