Understanding Credits
This page describes plans that use credits. If Profile Settings → Subscription shows you a daily message limit instead of a credit balance, your plan has not moved over yet — nothing here applies to you until it renews. See Message Limits for the rules that do. AppSumo plans are different again: they use monthly message pools with daily pacing, described in AppSumo Plan Tiers.
Plans on credits get a pool each month. Chat, images, video and web search all come out of that same pool — there is no separate allowance for each, and no daily cap.
- Pro — 800 credits a month
- Ultimate — 2,000 credits a month
Credits refill on your billing date. Unused plan credits do not carry over.
How many messages that is
The number depends entirely on which model you pick, and the range is enormous — the cheapest model in the catalog costs under 1/150th of the most expensive.
| Model | Credits per message | Pro (800) | Ultimate (2,000) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Qwen3.7 Flash | 0.02 | ~43,000 | ~107,000 |
| GPT-5.6 Luna | 0.07 | ~11,900 | ~29,800 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | 0.24 | ~3,200 | ~8,200 |
| Gemini 3.6 Flash | 0.92 | ~870 | ~2,100 |
| Claude Sonnet 5 | 1.22 | ~650 | ~1,600 |
| Claude Opus 5 | 3.06 | ~260 | ~650 |
| GPT-5.6 Sol | 3.35 | ~230 | ~590 |
These are measured from real usage on a typical conversation, not estimates. Your own numbers will vary — see below for what moves them.
On the plan cards we quote the conservative figures: about 3,000 everyday messages or 200 top-model messages on Pro. Those are deliberately below the table above, because they assume the most expensive model in each group.
Why a message costs what it does
A message costs far more than the words you type. The typical message someone sends is about 15 words. The model, though, does not read only those 15 words — it re-reads the entire conversation up to that point, so it can answer in context. On a typical turn that is about 7,500 tokens (roughly 5,500 words) going in, and about 600 tokens coming back.
That has three consequences worth knowing:
- The first message in a chat is cheap. The twentieth is not. Cost grows as the thread grows, because there is more to re-read each time.
- Attached files are re-read too. A long PDF in the conversation is part of every subsequent message, not just the one you attached it to.
- Long threads are cheaper than they look. We cache the conversation history, so you are not charged the full rate for re-reading text the model has already seen. About two-thirds of the input on a typical message is served from cache.
What everything costs
| What | Credits |
|---|---|
| Chat message, everyday models | under 1 |
| Chat message, top models | about 3 to 4 |
| Image | 2 to 20 depending on model (8 is typical) |
| Video | 4 to 50 per second depending on model |
| Web search | about 2 |
Video has no monthly count limit — it comes out of the same pool as everything else. At a typical 8-second clip that is roughly 10 clips on Pro and 25 on Ultimate, and considerably more on the lighter video models. At most 3 clips can be generating at the same time, which is a queue limit rather than an allowance.
Making your credits last
The single biggest lever is model choice — it is worth far more than anything else on this list.
- Use an everyday model for everyday questions. Drafting, summarising, formatting and quick lookups rarely need a frontier model. Switching a routine task from Claude Opus 5 to GPT-5.6 Luna costs about 1/40th as much.
- Start a new chat when you change topic. Old history is re-read on every message even when it is no longer relevant.
- Keep large files in Projects you only open when you need them. A file in the conversation is part of every message in it.
- Pick a cheaper image model for drafts. Save Nano Banana Pro for the version you intend to keep.
If you run out
You have three options:
- Wait. Credits refill on your billing date.
- Top up. Buy a credit pack on the upgrade page. Purchased credits last 90 days and are used only after your plan credits are gone.
- Move up a plan. Ultimate includes 2.5x the credits of Pro.
You can see your balance any time in Profile Settings → Subscription.
Moving over from a daily-limit plan
Older plans capped each model category by the day — Basic, Pro and Ultimate models each had their own daily allowance, and the strongest models were limited to a handful of messages a day no matter how much you paid. Those plans keep working exactly as they always have until they renew; nothing changes mid-term, and nothing is taken away early. Monthly plans move over at their next monthly renewal, annual plans at their next annual one.
Two things change when you do move over:
- The daily caps disappear. Every model in the catalog is available, and you can use any of them as much as your credits allow. There is no longer a separate allowance per model category.
- Heavy models draw down faster. Under daily caps, an Opus message and a Flash message counted the same. Under credits they do not — that is the trade for removing the cap.
Related docs
- Fair Use Policy — full credit rules, and the older daily-limit plans
- Message Limits — how usage is counted on both credit and daily-limit plans
- AppSumo Plan Tiers — monthly pools with daily pacing
- Supported AI Models — the full catalog
- Using Files — how attachments affect context