#1255·reader

402 Payment Required despite available token balance

Author: gregoryams84-langCreated Jul 12, 2026Updated Sep 12, 2026

Description

Requests to the Reader API are returning 402 Payment Required, even though the account/API key shows an available token balance in the dashboard. This happens both with my original key and with a newly generated key (created via a private/incognito browser session), which suggests the issue is not tied to a specific key but possibly to something on the account or billing side.

Steps to reproduce

  1. Generate or use an existing Jina API key with available token balance.
  2. Send a request to the Reader endpoint (read_url) via the MCP server (https://mcp.jina.ai/v1), using the key in the Authorization: Bearer <key> header.
  3. Observe the response.

Expected behavior

The request should succeed and return the extracted content, since the account has available tokens.

Actual behavior

The API returns HTTP 402 Payment Required.

Environment

  • Endpoint: Reader (read_url) via MCP server, https://mcp.jina.ai/v1
  • API key: ends in ...95Q10
  • Token balance: available (not zero) per dashboard
  • Tested with two different keys (original + newly generated), same result on both

Additional notes

I found other reports of the same 402 error occurring despite available/topped-up balances in this repo's issue history, so this may not be an isolated case. Any guidance on what's causing this would be appreciated.