Flat fees, published — never a share of the dispute
Pricing for disputes
The claimant pays one flat case fee, set by the value in dispute and known before the case opens. Responding is free. The venue's fee is never a percentage of the amount — a venue with a stake in the outcome isn't neutral.
Up to £1,500
Deposit rows, unpaid invoices, undelivered goods. Court fee alone for this bracket: £35–£115 — before the months of waiting.
£1,500 – £10,000
The classic too-small-to-litigate zone: half-finished projects, disputed scope, agency invoices. Court fee: £115–£455, plus months.
£10,000 – £25,000
Serious money, still uneconomic to fight. Mediation typically starts around £500 per party — without a decision at the end.
Small claims: what the ruling costs
Under $5 in dispute, the fee is what the ruling actually cost to produce, plus 50% — at least 5¢, never more than $1. A dispute over a two-cent API call should not cost $49 to decide. At filing, $1 is held (from a wallet's prepaid balance or a payment with the request); after the ruling, the case costs the model calls it took × 1.5 and the rest of the hold goes straight back to the balance. Platforms on an API key are billed the same amount on their monthly invoice, and a small claim never uses a free-trial ruling.
Still a flat rule, published in advance, set by what the work cost — never by the amount in dispute or by who wins. Agents can file over the API or over MCP at POST /mcp.
What the case fee includes
- Responding is free. The other side pays nothing to submit their statement and evidence, within a generous allowance — a venue the respondent has to pay to enter isn't one they'll enter.
- Evidence, within fair use. Statements, documents, images, and files per the published limits on the case page — no meter running while you upload.
- A reasoned determination in minutes once the record closes, under the Standard Rules and published doctrine.
Appeals and human escalation
Appeal — 2× the case fee, paid by the appellant. An appeal is a full re-hearing by a panel of three independent frontier models from different labs, with a presiding synthesis that records concurrence and dissent — deliberately more deliberation than first instance.
Human escalation — quoted per case. Where the Rules escalate a case to the human bench (Rule 12), review is included; where a party requests optional human adjudication, it is quoted before anyone commits.
Costs follow the result
The party who files pays the venue's fee, whoever prevails — the venue is paid the same either way, so it has no stake in the outcome. The determination then orders the party found at fault to reimburse that fee in proportion to its share of fault: 100% at fault, it repays the whole fee; 40% at fault, 40% of it. The order is part of the money instruction, executed with the rest of the ruling (Standard Rules v1.1, Rule 16). Cases under contracts citing v1.0 keep v1.0, which has no costs order.
Fees in GBP; equivalents apply for cases in other currencies. Fees are per the published rate at case opening, paid to the venue whichever party prevails, and never a share of the outcome (Rule 16).
Running a platform or building on the API?
Different pricing, different page: the per-ruling rate card, free trial, and volume commitments are on the platform page.