Solo creator can't top up Sume? The team-wallet-only error
Sume top-ups are bought from a team wallet. If you see stripe_topup_team_only on a personal account, here is what the message means and the two ways out.
If you try to buy extra credits from a personal account on Sume, the checkout can refuse with the code stripe_topup_team_only. The message reads: "On-demand usage is purchased from a team wallet. Create or join an organization to buy additional credits, or upgrade your plan for more included usage." It is not a payment failure. It is a rule about where on-demand credits live.
What the rule says
Top-ups fund team wallets only. A solo creator is not blocked from Sume, but extra on-demand usage is bought into an organization wallet, which is what the error message asks for.
The billing and credits docs add one more constraint for API users: the public Developer API reads your balance and usage with GET /v1/balance and GET /v1/usage, and has no endpoint that creates a top-up. Buying is a dashboard action.
The two ways out
- Create an organization in the dashboard (or accept an invite to one), then open Billing and subscription from that team and buy the top-up there. Manual top-ups run from $10 to $1,000, with $50, $100, $500 and $1,000 presets.
- Or move up a plan. The pricing page lists Pro at $40 a month with a team wallet and on-demand billing, Startup at $120 and Scale at $400, so the plan itself brings more included usage.
What a top-up does not change
A top-up adds dollars; it does not add parallel jobs. Concurrency is set by plan: 1 on Free, 4 on Pro, 8 on Startup, 20 on Scale. The docs say the same thing from the other side: when a balance cannot cover a reservation, the API returns a 402 insufficient_credits error, and the errors and credits page explains that a reservation is held first, captured when the job completes and refunded if it fails.
That matters for a one-person channel. If your jobs fail with 402 right after you thought you had paid, check which wallet the dollars went into: the team you bought into must be the one your API key belongs to.
A short checklist
- Confirm which workspace your API key is issued in.
- Create or join the organization, then top up from that workspace.
- Call GET /v1/balance with the same key and confirm the balance moved before you start a batch.
- If the balance is fine but jobs queue, that is concurrency, not credit.
Sources
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