Do I need a credit card to try vatnode?

No. The Free plan gives you 100 live validations per month with no card required, which is enough to fully build and test an integration before deciding on a paid plan. See pricing for what each paid tier adds if you outgrow it.

What you can do without a card

• Create an account and get an API key straight away.
• Build against the test key as much as you like: test-mode calls use fixture data and never count against your quota.
• Run real checks with a live key, up to the Free plan’s monthly allowance.

What happens at the limit

The Free plan is hard-capped. Once the monthly quota is used up, live calls return 429 with a message to upgrade or wait for the next billing period. As usage approaches the limit, responses carry a Vatnode-Quota-Warning header once you pass 80%, and every response has RateLimit-* headers showing your quota. The rate limits reference has the details.

vatnode does not apply a per-second or per-IP request rate limit; the monthly quota is the only throttle.

If you outgrow it

Paid plans are described on the pricing page. You only need a card when you decide to move to one.