Access and collection
Billing and access for CDRs: which organization can download a record, and which organization is charged for it.
The two ways an organization gets access
It collected the record. Collecting means this organization is the payer for this record, and it happens either through auto-collect, when the record is captured on one of your own sites, or through an explicit collect call for a record already in your account.
It received the record from an organization that had already paid. When you open a share URL created by an organization that has already collected that record, you are granted access without being charged. Nothing is billed to either side.
Free access travels one hop
If the organization that created the share URL holds paid access, the recipient gets free access. If the organization that created it holds free access, because they received it from a payer themselves, the next recipient gets nothing free. Their request collects the record and they become a payer.
So any payer can distribute evidence to as many direct partners as they like at no additional cost, while a single payment cannot cascade down an unbounded chain of resales.
Auto-collect
For organizations with billing set up, auto-collect is on by default: your organization is treated as the payer for records captured on your own sites, and access is granted as each record finishes processing.
If you generate leads and want your buyers to be the payers, turn it off under Organization → Settings → Billing, where it reads "Charge this org for CDRs captured on its websites". You need permission to manage the organization to change it. With it off, records you capture sit in your account uncollected: visible, searchable, not downloadable.
Dev Mode is a preview, not access
A capture made with devMode: true is always free and uncollected. It creates no payment, billing
attribution, or access-grant document, even when auto-collect is on. Owner API responses therefore show
devMode: true, collected: false, and no downloadUrl.
Members of the organization that captured it can preview its image and supporting documents in the
dashboard. They can also create visibly marked public viewer links and PDFs. Those paths are review
exceptions, not collection: they do not make the organization a payer, do not grant transferable
access, and do not let a recipient claim the CDR. Collect and API-transfer attempts return 409 CDR_DEV_MODE.
Passthrough organizations
Passthrough organizations have no billing set up. They can capture records and forward share URLs to their buyers, but they cannot collect, cannot become the payer on a share, and cannot receive a shared record into their own account. Opening a share URL is refused rather than saved. They also have no server-to-server API access by default.
They can preview Dev Mode records they produced in the dashboard without setting up billing. This does not let them receive or collect a record. If that is how your organization is configured, the auto-collect setting does not appear. Talk to us to set up billing and the production restrictions lift.