Tier progression — auto-graduating trust

Five tiers. Sandbox key issued in 30 seconds. Clean 30-day history auto-promotes to the next tier. No volume application, no admin queue for the middle tiers. Cap enforcement bounds mistakes; time-in-tier and clean history unlock larger caps.

Five tiers

T0
Sandbox Instant
$10 max order · $100 daily · sk_test_* · test markets only
Anonymous. 30-second signup. Everything you need to prototype an agent, a bot, a widget.
Get sandbox key →
T1
Read-Live Instant
Read-only · 60 req/min · sk_live_read_* · live market data
One handle verification (echo a code on your Telegram / Signal). No trade capability. For dashboards, analytics tools, MCP research agents.
Get read-live key →
T2
Trade-Capped Instant · 24h auto-approve
$100 max order · $1,000 daily · 300 req/min · sk_live_*
Homepage check + use-case description (50+ chars) + jurisdiction declared. Auto-approves within 24h if nothing looks off. Trade real money, capped so mistakes are bounded.
Apply →
T3
Trade-Full Auto-graduate from T2
Uncapped · 1,000 req/min · sk_live_* · builder revshare unlocks
30 days at T2 with zero abuse flags + $10,000+ routed volume → auto-promotes here. Unlocks the 20% attribution share on your app_id flow (see fee architecture).
Automatic
T4
Genesis / Partner Application
Custom caps + fee discount + designated MM eligibility + co-marketing
For institutional integrations, large MMs, media partners. Application + human review. Adds designated MM rebate (up to 20 bps on maker fills) and custom fee tiering.
Apply →

Auto-graduation criteria

Two crons run daily and check every T2 credential:

Time

Age of the api_key ≥ 30 days

Volume

Sum of notional across successful fills ≥ 10,000 USDT

Clean

Zero unresolved abuse_flags on builder, app, or api_key

KYC not required

Neither declared nor implied. Handle + jurisdiction is the whole check.

If all four pass, tier flips from trade_capped to trade_full and a row lands in graduation_events. You get notified on your registered contact channel. Nothing changes on your side — your existing sk_live_* just starts accepting bigger orders.

Progress visibility. Call pax.tier_status from any MCP agent, or hit GET /v1/builders/me/tier. Returns time-remaining, volume-remaining, and abuse-flag count. Use it to render a progress bar in your app.

Downgrade

Abuse detection is separate. A single confirmed wash trade, self-trade, or manipulation flag on your account triggers auto-downgrade back to T2 with the reason recorded in graduation_events.reason = 'auto_downgrade_abuse'. Contested via /request-access?track=appeal.

Cap enforcement

Tier caps enforce at the auth middleware — the check runs before every POST /v1/orders. If notional_used_today_usdt + this_order > daily_cap, the request returns TIER_LIMIT_EXCEEDED with a Retry-After hint to next-midnight-UTC. Notional counter resets at midnight UTC.

Sandbox tier additionally rejects orders on any market not tagged is_sandbox_market = true. Read-Live tier rejects all POST /v1/orders unconditionally with TIER_UPGRADE_REQUIRED.

See also: Rate Limits · Fee Architecture · Creator Economy · Grants