diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 8a45251..fd29b81 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -63,9 +63,19 @@ test that couldn't fail.
 
 - **`n` is bounded 1–10 before payment.** Base's `image2image` schema is
   `z.number().optional().default(1)` — no int, no bounds — so `n=1000` passed
-  validation, took payment, then 400'd at the provider and lost the prepaid
-  USDC. (Solana already bounds it. The gateway-side fix belongs in `blockrun`;
-  this closes it at the sidecar for both chains today.)
+  validation, earned a 402, got payment-verified, and only then 400'd at the
+  provider. (Solana already bounds it. The gateway-side fix belongs in
+  `blockrun`; this closes it at the sidecar for both chains today.)
+
+  **Correction (2026-07-16):** as first published, this entry said the round-trip
+  "lost the prepaid USDC". That is wrong, and the claim shipped in 0.7.2.
+  BlockRun's gateways settle **on success** — `settlePaymentWithRetry` runs after
+  the upstream call — so a request that dies at the provider settles nothing and
+  costs the caller nothing. The bound is still worth having: it saves a pointless
+  signed round-trip, a facilitator verify, and an upstream call, and returns a
+  clean local 400. It just was never about losing money. The error was inherited
+  from the SDK's `"API error after payment"` wording, which reads as *funds gone*
+  on failures that took nothing (fixed in blockrun-llm#25).
 
 - **Post-settlement parse failures no longer answer 400 or skip the audit log.**
   `pydantic.ValidationError` subclasses `ValueError`, and the SDK builds its
diff --git a/blockrun_litellm/proxy.py b/blockrun_litellm/proxy.py
index e404349..9cd1558 100644
--- a/blockrun_litellm/proxy.py
+++ b/blockrun_litellm/proxy.py
@@ -825,13 +825,19 @@ def _require_named_model(value: Any) -> Optional[str]:
 
 
 def _require_image_n(value: Any) -> int:
-    """Bound `n` locally, before it can cost anything.
+    """Bound `n` locally so a doomed request never reaches the payment dance.
 
     Base's `image2image` gateway schema is `z.number().optional().default(1)` —
-    no int, no bounds — so `n=1000` passes validation, takes payment, and only
-    then 400s at the provider, losing the prepaid USDC. Solana already bounds it
-    (`.int().min(1).max(10)`). 10 is the ceiling the Base *text-to-image* schema
-    uses, whose own comment names this exact loss.
+    no int, no bounds — so `n=1000` passes validation, earns a 402, gets
+    payment-verified, and only then 400s at the provider. Solana already bounds
+    it (`.int().min(1).max(10)`); 10 is the ceiling the Base *text-to-image*
+    schema uses.
+
+    No money is at stake, despite what the t2i schema's comment implies: the
+    gateways settle **on success**, so a request that dies at the provider
+    settles nothing. What this saves is a pointless signed round-trip — a
+    facilitator verify and an upstream call — and it answers 400 locally instead
+    of surfacing the provider's error.
     """
     if isinstance(value, str) and not value.strip():
         return 1  # blank multipart field means "unset"
diff --git a/tests/test_proxy_media.py b/tests/test_proxy_media.py
index b3dcf0b..b813610 100644
--- a/tests/test_proxy_media.py
+++ b/tests/test_proxy_media.py
@@ -453,9 +453,12 @@ def test_bad_typed_size_or_model_is_rejected_not_silently_defaulted(self, client
             assert response.status_code == 400, f"{field}={bad!r} must not be guessed at"
         mock.assert_not_called()
 
-    def test_n_is_bounded_before_it_can_cost_anything(self, client, monkeypatch):
+    def test_n_is_bounded_before_the_payment_dance(self, client, monkeypatch):
         """Base's image2image gateway schema has no int/bounds on n, so n=1000
-        passes zod, takes payment, then 400s at the provider — prepaid USDC gone.
+        passes zod, earns a 402, gets verified, then 400s at the provider.
+
+        No money is lost — the gateways settle on success — but the round-trip
+        is pure waste, and a local 400 beats the provider's error surfacing late.
         """
         mock = _mock_adapter(monkeypatch, "image_generation_async", return_value=dict(OK_RESULT))
         for bad in (0, -5, 1000, 11):