---
title: "Understanding Credits"
description: "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](/docs/agents/playground).
- **Actions**, such as deciding whether to collect a lead or send a Slack notification, and calling your [Custom API](/docs/actions/custom-api).
- **Web searches** made by the [Web Search](/docs/actions/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](/docs/agents/attachments).
- **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](/docs/agents/ai-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](/docs/analytics/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](/docs/billing/additional-credits). 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](/docs/billing/additional-credits).
- [Upgrade your plan](/docs/billing/managing-subscriptions) for more monthly credits.
- Set a [credits limit](/docs/agents/settings#credits-limit) on busy agents so one agent can't use everything.
- Switch to a faster [AI model](/docs/agents/ai-models).