> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.scanbylens.xyz/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.scanbylens.xyz/business/economics.md).

# Economics

Free for people. Paid by businesses. Cheap to serve by design.

## Free for users

Calls and deep research are **free**. A paid "why is it moving" read is no longer a business: exchanges and data sites now give market explanations away. LensAI competes on what they do not offer, a committed call with a public record, and it keeps that free for three reasons:

1. **Reach.** A track record only matters if people see it. Free calls go where people already are: the desk, Telegram, X when tagged, partner apps and agents.
2. **Integrity.** Calls that cost nothing and go to everyone are impersonal market commentary, not a paid signal service.
3. **Data.** Every read and every question improves the evaluation set the desk is measured on.

### Guardrails on free

* Sign-in for deep reads; quick reads and the live pulse need none.
* Daily caps per account and basic bot checks.
* A monthly cost budget for model calls and licensed data.
* When capacity runs out, the desk serves the measured state and the shared briefs, which cost nothing, instead of failing.

## Cheap to serve by design

The cost of serving one more reader stays close to zero, because the expensive work is shared:

| Request                              | Cost per reader                                              |
| ------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| Market State and generic token reads | None: one shared brief per hourly anchor, for everyone       |
| What changed                         | None: arithmetic                                             |
| Watches, however many                | None: arithmetic on derived tables                           |
| The record                           | None: a read                                                 |
| A specific question                  | One structured generation, sometimes one small planning call |
| Claim Check                          | One structured generation                                    |

Most reads make no model call at all. Margin widens with scale rather than narrowing.

### Known running costs

The main variable costs are model calls for specific questions and Claim Check, licensed cross-venue market data (liquidations, cross-venue open interest and order books, ETF flows), and the X API for Claim Check replies when tagged. Infrastructure is a single always-on engine service, a website, a user database and off-site backup.

## Who pays: businesses

When LensAI charges, it charges **businesses, not readers**. Each line meters something the engine already does:

| Line                                 | What it is                                                                                                                                                             |
| ------------------------------------ | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **API and MCP volume**               | Free access for agents up to a fair cap; metered access above it for platforms and products that build on the engine.                                                  |
| **Team desks**                       | Shared watches, alert routing to team channels, higher daily budgets and an audit trail, billed as a subscription.                                                     |
| **Data licensing**                   | Licensed, point-in-time access to the normalized cross-factor history, the corpus and the calibration record, the assets that cannot be rebuilt.                       |
| **Audit trails for regulated firms** | Firms increasingly have to answer for the AI tools they use. LensAI's hashed, append-only trail of what was said, on what evidence, is the kind of evidence they need. |
| **Partner widgets**                  | Market State and Claim Check widgets for exchanges, wallets and terminals: free in return for distribution and visible credit, paid at scale.                          |

## Funding the build

The free product is funded by grants, partnerships and investment, not by selling a token. $LENS is described in [the next section](/business/token.md), and it is not used to fund the free product.


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