Your project's AI features are paid for with AI credits. Owners and admins see the balance, buy more and see what was spent in Settings → Billing.

What spends credits

These features spend credits each time they use AI. They're the names you see in Usage:

  • AI answers: answers to readers' questions on your portal and in the widget. See Help readers find answers.

  • Ask a person (summaries): the summary sent with a question a reader passes to your team.

  • Support inbox (drafts and summaries): Draft with AI and Summarize with AI in the Inbox. See Reply to a conversation.

  • Changelog drafts and edits: Draft with AI and Edit with AI on changelog entries. See AI release notes.

  • Autopilot: reading each merged pull request and writing its updates, and checking articles against your code. See Set up Autopilot.

What a use costs depends on how much the AI reads and writes, and on the model. A bigger model spends more credits per use. See Choose the AI model for each feature.

Search and finding similar posts don't spend credits.

Where credits come from

  • Free credits: every project gets 100 AI credits once, to start. They last a year.

  • Plan: Pro adds 1,000 credits and Business 5,000 with each paid month. Paid yearly, the year's credits come at once. A plan's credits last until the end of the period they came with. See Plans and what each includes.

  • Top-up: credits you buy, on any plan. Each US dollar buys 100 credits, and they last a year.

  • Given by Tuti: credits Tuti adds for you.

See your balance

Open Settings → Billing. The card's title is your balance, like "3,242 AI credits". Below it, each batch of credits with some left has a row: where it came from and when, how many are Left, how many it started with (Of), and when it Expires ("Never" if it doesn't).

Credits that expire soonest are spent first.

The AI credits card with Plan, Free credits and Top-up rows showing Left, Of and Expires, and the Buy credits card below it with $25 picked

Buy credits

  1. In Settings → Billing, under Buy credits, pick $10, $25, $50 or $100.

    • For another amount, pick Other amount and enter whole US dollars in Amount in US dollars, from $5 to $1,000.

  2. Check the line under the amounts. It says how many AI credits you get and how long they last, such as "2,500 AI credits, lasting 365 days."

  3. Choose Buy credits and pay on Stripe's payment page.

Stripe brings you back to Billing with "Thanks for your payment. Your credits show here as soon as Stripe confirms it, usually within a few seconds." They show as a Top-up row.

You can also buy credits through the API. See API and MCP.

See what credits were spent on

Usage, at the bottom of Settings → Billing, shows the last 12 months, each in its own card (months in UTC). Each card has the month's total in credits, the number of AI requests and the tokens used. Its table splits that by feature, the one that spent most first: Requests, Tokens and Credits.

Usage for one month: 358 credits over 553 requests, split by feature

A request the AI provider gave no price for is counted, said under the month's total ("without a price from the provider, charged no credits"), and costs nothing. Until your project uses AI, Usage says No AI use yet.

When credits run low

When the balance falls below 20 credits, owners and admins with a confirmed email address get an email titled "Acme is running low on AI credits", with your project's name, saying how many are left. Its See Billing button opens Billing. It's sent once, until the project gets more credits.

When credits run out

The same owners and admins get an email titled "Acme is out of AI credits", once, until the project gets more credits. Every page of the project in the app shows This project is out of AI credits: "AI answers, changelog drafts and Autopilot are paused until it has more." Owners and admins see a See Billing link; other members see "An owner or admin can add them."

While the project is out:

  • AI answers: readers see "AI answers aren't available right now." with the articles closest to their question, and Post this as feedback. Where you've turned on Ask a person, they can still pass the question to your team; it reaches the Inbox without its summary.

  • Inbox: Draft with AI and Summarize with AI are greyed out.

  • Changelog: Edit with AI and Draft with AI are greyed out.

  • Autopilot: each merged pull request waits as Paused, "The project ran out of AI credits." Nothing from it is read or sent to the AI until you resume it. Article checks can't start, and a Verify all under way stops before its next article. See Check articles against your code.

An answer or check that had already started finishes. Everything that doesn't use AI works as usual.

Pick up again

Buy credits, or wait for your plan's next paid period. As soon as the project has credits, the banner goes and AI works again.

Paused pull requests don't resume by themselves, so you choose when they use credits:

  • On Home, the Paused card lists up to 10 of them. Resume all resumes every one, those past the first 10 too. It says "Resumed", or how many analyses stopped, with "See Autopilot".

  • To resume one, choose Resume on it in Autopilot → Activity.

Home's Paused card with three merged pull requests and Resume all

Resuming while the project is still out of credits says "This project is out of AI credits. See Settings → Billing."