How it works
Teams and projects
Section titled “Teams and projects”- A team owns the USD balance and the payment settings. People join a team as
owner,adminormember. Owners manage payments, refunds and members. Admins manage projects, API keys, webhooks and project settings. Members use the team’s projects. Every member sees all of the team’s projects. - A project owns API keys, numbers, mailboxes, authorization links and webhook endpoints. Use one project per product or environment to keep resources, spending and keys apart.
- Every request is made as a project: an API key identifies one, and an MCP token is bound to one. The cost of the request is charged to the project’s team, and counts towards the project’s spend limits.
A team or project can be suspended. Requests then fail with 403 team_suspended.
What you can do
Section titled “What you can do”| Service | What you get | Guide |
|---|---|---|
| Numbers | A phone number that receives SMS: temporary for one verification, monthly for a number you keep, device for your own SIM. |
Numbers |
| Emails | A mailbox that receives mail for your automation: your Gmail or Outlook account, or an address we host. | Emails |
| Captchas | A solved captcha, in one request. | Captchas |
| Webhooks | Signed HTTP calls to your server when something changes. | Webhooks |
You never choose or see the supplier behind a service. You choose the number type, the captcha type and,
for hCaptcha, the mode; we pick what serves it.
Three ways in
Section titled “Three ways in”- REST API at
https://api.clearance.rest, authenticated with an API key. Every operation is in the API reference. - SDKs for Node.js and PHP, with typed errors and deadlines built in.
- MCP server at
https://mcp.clearance.rest/mcp, so an AI agent can use a project’s numbers, mailboxes and captcha solving as tools. See Connecting an MCP client.
The console is where you manage accounts, projects, keys, balance and webhooks.
Pay per use
Section titled “Pay per use”You top up a USD balance and each paid operation draws from it. Failed operations do not cost anything, and a paid operation first reserves its price so a request never starts that the balance cannot cover. The rules are on Billing; current prices are on Pricing.
Waiting instead of polling
Section titled “Waiting instead of polling”An SMS or an email is not there yet when you ask for it. Instead of polling, you hold one request open until the result arrives. See Waiting for results. When you would rather be told, subscribe a webhook.
Conventions
Section titled “Conventions”- Money is USD and appears as a JSON number (
"price": 0.168). - Timestamps in the REST API are UTC, ISO 8601 strings.
- Identifiers are opaque strings; do not parse them.
- Phone numbers are in E.164 format (
+14155550100). - Lists are paginated with a cursor; see Metadata and pagination.