Your balance is visible in four places, and they all read the same ledger.
- Home - the wallet tile shows your current balance next to the top-up options. This is the fastest check.
- Profile → Billing - the plan card shows which plan is current and what it grants; Billing history shows every charge.
- REST API -
GET /api/mcp/accountreturns identity and quota, so an agent can check before it spends. - CLI - the account command reports the same figures in a terminal, and exit code 5 signals payment required during any run.

Contact credits and verification checks are shown separately, because they are separate pools that never substitute for each other. A healthy contact balance tells you nothing about whether you can verify an uploaded list.
Balances update the moment a payment completes and the moment a spend is recorded, so there is no lag to account for after a top-up.
For agents, the account endpoint is the right pre-flight check. Calling it costs nothing and lets an agent decide between exporting now and asking you to top up first.