402 Payment Required

HTTP 402 Payment Required was originally reserved for digital payment systems but is now used by some APIs (Stripe, GitHub) to signal that the request requires payment, an active subscription, or has hit a rate limit on the free tier.

Paid API tiers signaling that the user has hit a quota or needs to upgrade.

• Free tier quota exceeded
• Subscription expired or invoice unpaid
• Premium feature accessed without entitlement

• Update billing details with the API provider
• Upgrade to a paid plan
• Check the response body for which feature requires payment
• Implement client-side handling that prompts the user to upgrade

HTTP/1.1 402 Payment Required
Content-Type: application/json

{"error":"Subscription required"}