Understanding Credits
How credits work, what uses them, and the order in which your monthly and purchased credits are spent.
Credits pay for the AI work your agents do. Each plan includes a set number of credits every month, shared by your whole team.
What uses credits
Credits are based on the actual AI processing each task takes. Things that use credits include:
- Replies from your agents, on every channel and in the Playground.
- Actions, such as deciding whether to collect a lead or send a Slack notification, and calling your Custom API.
- Web searches made by the Web Search action.
- Training knowledge, when sources are prepared for search.
- Reading attachments: images and PDFs customers send, and transcribing voice messages, on every channel. See Attachments and Voice Messages.
- Summaries of long conversations, which keep your agent’s memory of the conversation short and efficient.
Replies that don’t need any AI processing don’t use credits.
How much a reply costs
The cost of a reply depends on:
- The AI model. More capable models use more credits.
- The length of the question, the answer, and the knowledge the agent reads to answer it.
- Actions used during the reply.
A typical reply from a fast model uses a small number of credits. Use Usage Analytics to see what your agents actually use.
Credit buckets
Your team’s credits are kept in two buckets, used in this order:
| Order | Bucket | Details |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Monthly credits | Included in your plan. They reset at the start of each billing cycle; unused monthly credits don’t carry over. |
| 2 | Purchased credits | From credit packs. They roll over and never expire. |
When credits run out
When all your credits are used up, your agents can’t reply until you add credits or your monthly credits reset. You’ll get a Credits exhausted email.
To avoid running out:
- Buy a credit pack.
- Upgrade your plan for more monthly credits.
- Set a credits limit on busy agents so one agent can’t use everything.
- Switch to a faster AI model.