Parallel has launched Scale, a self-serve plan that sits between its pay-as-you-go Build plan and Enterprise. The new tier is meant for teams that want higher production rate limits and Zero Data Retention without signing an enterprise contract.
Scale costs US$1,000 a month, before tax, and that amount is added to the organisation as credits spent at Parallel’s standard API rates, rather than as a fee on top of usage. Teams can also pay US$10,000 upfront for US$12,000 in credits over 12 months, which the company describes as two months free, or a 17% discount on the monthly price. A later note from Parallel on X points to the pricing page to compare plans.
Introducing the Scale plan: production rate limits and Zero Data Retention on Parallel, without an enterprise contract:
— Parallel Web Systems (@p0) November 11, 2026
– Zero Data Retention (ZDR)
– 1,500 requests/min on Search and Extract
$1,000/month, with the flexibility to cancel anytime, or pay annually and get 2 months free.
Compare plans: parallel.ai/pricing
What the higher limits actually cover
On Build, Search and Extract are capped at 600 requests a minute. Scale raises those two to 1,500 a minute. The higher Search figure excludes Turbo mode requests, according to both the launch blog and the pricing page. Decisions stays at 600 requests a minute on Build and on Scale. Task stays at 2,000 a minute on both. Enterprise limits are set in the contract.
How the credits work
The $1,000 a month isn’t a platform fee. It’s added to your organization as $1,000 in credits, which you can spend on any Parallel API at standard rates.
Parallel blog
Monthly credits cover that month and do not roll over; unused credits expire at the end of the paid month. Annual credits are drawn down over the 12-month term. Once a month’s credits are gone, further use can be paid by topping up the prepaid balance with the card on file, manually or with automatic top-ups when the balance drops below a threshold you set.
Scale is monthly by default, and you can cancel anytime. The pricing FAQs say the paid month stays covered, and that there are no prorated refunds. Plan benefits, the blog says, are kept for any months in which you’ve been charged. Billing is by card, monthly or annually upfront. Support on Scale is email, up from docs on Build.
Hybrid ZDR, after you sign
Zero data retention on Scale is Hybrid ZDR, and it is not on at the moment you pay. The blog and the pricing page say it turns on once you sign an agreement in Platform and Parallel enables it on the account. After that, synchronous APIs such as Search and Extract retain no request content. Asynchronous APIs such as Task retain request content for up to eight days.
Teams that want Strict ZDR, where asynchronous APIs keep request content for up to 60 seconds rather than eight days, or a custom retention period, still need an Enterprise plan. While ZDR is on, Parallel makes live calls to a data partner only when its agreement with that partner includes ZDR terms. Index Partners without those terms return only data Parallel already hosts, and receive no request content. Selecting a connector without ZDR terms is rejected. Bring-your-own-licence servers are not restricted.
Under Parallel’s standard Customer Terms, the company may use inputs and outputs, not linked to any individual, to train and improve the models behind its services. The docs FAQ says Enterprise plans with zero data retention exclude that use, and that Search API traffic sent to the EU endpoint is also excluded. The Scale materials describe Hybrid ZDR in terms of how long request content is kept, and do not restate that training clause.
How Scale sits next to the other plans
Build remains pay-as-you-go, with no subscription fee: you pay published API rates on a card, with up to US$80 at signup and a recurring US$5 a month, plus SOC 2 Type II, which Scale also includes. Launch is a free hosted search MCP for personal use, with variable limits, and is not an account plan covered by that certification.
Enterprise includes everything in Scale, and adds SSO (SAML), custom rate limits and data retention, a custom MSA and DPA, a HIPAA BAA, invoicing or marketplace billing, an uptime SLA, a forward-deployed engineer, a dedicated Slack channel, and early access to new products.
| Feature | Build | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Pay as you go | US$1,000 a month in credits, or US$10,000 a year for US$12,000 in credits |
| Search and Extract | 600 requests/min | 1,500 requests/min (Search excludes Turbo) |
| Decisions | 600 requests/min | 600 requests/min |
| Task | 2,000 requests/min | 2,000 requests/min |
| Zero data retention | Not included | Hybrid ZDR, after a signed agreement |
| Support | Docs |
Published starting prices are unchanged by the plan: Search from US$1 per 1,000 requests, Extract at US$1 per 1,000 URLs, Decisions at US$1 per 1,000 requests, and higher tiers for Task, Responses, Monitor and FindAll, as set out in the pricing docs.
In Platform, the path is Billing, then Change plan, then Scale. After you pay and the credits land, you sign the ZDR agreement if you want retention turned on.
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