Sharing
Sharing means listing capacity you already have and being paid when somebody uses it: per token on chat, embeddings and decisions, and per unit (an image, a second of video, a track) on the other endpoints. There are three kinds, and the difference between them decides what stops them and who can read the traffic.
The three kinds
| Kind | What it is | Stops at | Blind to your machine? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subscription | A consumer OAuth plan: Claude Code, Codex, Antigravity | the plan's monthly ceiling | Yes; relayed as encrypted bytes |
| API key | A provider API key you paste | nothing; billed to you per token | Yes; injected at the relay, never read on your machine |
| Self-hosted | A model running on your own hardware | your hardware | No; it runs here, so this machine reads the prompts |
aile capacity shows all three at once, separated, with these distinctions
spelled out.
An API key has no ceiling
A subscription stops at its monthly limit. An API key does not stop: usage is billed to your provider account, per token, for as long as it serves. The CLI says so before you paste one, because it is a reasonable thing to decide against.
What you are handing over
- Self-hosted: nothing leaves. Weights stay on your machine; only inference output goes out. Your machine reads the prompts, because it is the thing answering them.
- Subscription and API key: the credential is custodied by Aile, encrypted at rest and decrypted on every request it serves. Your machine relays ciphertext and is blind; the relay is not.
What Aile can see is the full table, including what the relay reads on each path.
Getting started
- Install the CLI: Node 20+, one global install.
- Connect an account: a menu, or name a provider. A
model lists once it passes a test:
aile models <n>shows where each stands,aile test <n>tests them. - Set your rates: a margin, overall or per model, from free up to list price, never above.
- Run the node:
aile start, or install it as a service. - Get paid: USDC on Solana, batched, plus Base or Tempo where the deployment takes payments there.
Two ways to serve without a machine running
- Nodeless: an API key, or a subscription switched on from the web dashboard, can serve with no machine in the path at all. You keep earning with your box switched off, at the cost of the node-side kill switch.
- Several machines: one account, many nodes.
aile statsbreaks earnings down per machine so you can see which box is carrying traffic.
Beyond chat
Embeddings, images, speech, transcription, video, music, rerank, moderation, OCR, web search, scrape and decisions are served only from nodeless API-key accounts. A per-unit model with a published list price is priced at that price times your margin from the moment you link, and lists once it passes a test.
The Providers models panel lists every model type your accounts can serve and tests each one. A model lists only after it passes a test, non-chat models included. Image, video and music tests generate output and bill your provider account, so the panel asks first.
Provider not listed?
If the provider you want to share is not in the aile connect menu, ask us to
add it. We review each application by hand and add a provider only
once its API, prices and terms check out.
What sharing does not get you
- No say in who buys. Requests route by price first. You set a price and a model list; you do not choose the caller.
- No guaranteed volume. Sharer selection is price-first, with speed and reliability only breaking ties between sharers quoting the same price. The relay tries a cheaper sharer before you no matter how much faster you are. See Routing & failover.
- No rating to game. What callers see about you is counted from the ledger: requests served, success rate, uptime. There are no stars and no reviews to cultivate.