# Billing and credits

> How credits work, what your monthly allowance covers, what tasks, chat and images cost, how the plans compare, and how top-ups and spending limits behave.

Source: https://support.orkosi.com/docs/billing

Everything you do on Orkosi that uses AI or infrastructure is paid for in **credits**. This page explains the unit, what it buys, how each plan allocates it and what happens at the edges.

## How credits work
- **1 credit = 1 cent.** One hundred credits make a dollar, on every plan and every purchase — a credit is exactly one cent of your balance, so what a task costs and what leaves your balance are always the same number.
- Your balance is shown in the top bar and on **Credits**. Every debit is itemised: which task, chat message, image or domain it paid for, and how many credits it cost.
- Credits are spent per product, from the balance of the account that owns the product.
- Administrators reviewing your account are never charged for what they do on your behalf.

## Plan credits vs purchased credits
Two kinds of credits land in the same balance, and **neither expires**:

|                      | Plan credits                                      | Purchased credits                          |
| -------------------- | ------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------ |
| Where they come from | Included in your plan, added on each billing date | Credit packs you buy, or automatic top-ups |
| Expire?              | **Never.** Unused credits stay until you use them | **Never**                                  |
| Spent first?         | Purchased and plan credits are one bucket         | Bonus (signup) credits are spent last      |

The current prices are on the [pricing page](https://support.orkosi.com/pricing).

## What each credit buys
### Tasks
A task is billed on **usage**, not a flat fee: the cost of the AI work it took, with the platform margin included. Two things drive it:

1. **The AI tier** you choose for the task. Higher tiers use stronger, more expensive models and are worth it for hard problems; lower tiers are cheaper and fast for routine changes.
2. **How much work the task needs.** A copy change costs a fraction of a new feature with a data model change and tests.

| AI tier | Name         | Available on       | Best for                                   |
| ------- | ------------ | ------------------ | ------------------------------------------ |
| 1       | **Quick**    | All plans          | Copy, styling, small fixes                 |
| 2       | **Standard** | All plans          | Most features and bug fixes                |
| 3       | **Quality**  | Pro and Enterprise | Complex features, refactors                |
| 4       | **Premium**  | Pro and Enterprise | Architecture-level changes, hard debugging |

Which tiers you can pick depends on the **plan of the product the task is for** (each product has its own plan under
Billing → Products). The entry plan unlocks Quick and Standard; the higher plans unlock all four. Locked tiers are
greyed in the New task form with an "Upgrade to unlock" link, and the API refuses them. Your plan also sets the credits
included every month.

While a task runs, the task panel shows a live credit meter, so you always see what it has cost so far. The task is charged once, when it completes, for what it really used.

### Chat assistant
The current prices are on the [pricing page](https://support.orkosi.com/pricing).

Slash commands such as `/status` or `/credits` are free. See the [Chat assistant guide](https://support.orkosi.com/docs/chat-assistant).

### Other charges
| Item              | Credits                                                                                            |
| ----------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Hosted deployment | Included in your plan. Each successful deployment is recorded as one build unit on your usage page |
| Custom domain     | One-off setup fee per domain, shown before you confirm. See [Custom domains](https://support.orkosi.com/docs/custom-domains) |

## Plans
Pricing is **per product**: every plan covers one product, and each further product gets its own plan. This
table is rendered from the same price list the pricing page, the app and the assistant read (it is never typed
by hand):

The current prices are on the [pricing page](https://support.orkosi.com/pricing).

AI tiers 1–4 are Quick, Standard, Quality and Premium. Every plan runs on a shared database cell; Enterprise can
have a dedicated instance set up manually.

The live plan details are always at [orkosi.com/pricing](https://orkosi.com/pricing). Change plan under **Billing → Plans**; upgrades take effect immediately and downgrades at the end of the period.

## Top-ups and overage
There is no surprise overage bill. When your credits are gone, work that needs credits **pauses** until you add more:

- A new task or chat message is refused with a clear "not enough credits" message (HTTP `402` on the API).
- A task that is already running is warned about two minutes before the balance reaches zero and is then stopped safely.

### Hosting beyond your plan's allowance
Each plan includes an amount of app requests, bandwidth, database storage and build minutes (see the plan table above).
What a unit costs past that allowance is published here from the same price list; you can cap the month's overage
under **Billing → Usage** (spend cap) and your environments pause instead of charging past it.

The current prices are on the [pricing page](https://support.orkosi.com/pricing).

To keep working, add credits in one of two ways.

### Credit packs
Buy any time under **Credits → Buy credits**.

The current prices are on the [pricing page](https://support.orkosi.com/pricing).

### Auto top-up
Turn on **Auto top-up** under **Credits** and save a card. When your balance drops below a threshold, Orkosi buys a pack for you off-session.

| Setting                         | Default                       |
| ------------------------------- | ----------------------------- |
| Top up when balance falls below | 250 credits                   |
| Maximum automatic top-ups       | 5 per month                   |
| Pauses after                    | 3 consecutive failed payments |

Both the threshold and the pack size are yours to change. The plan's **spending limit** caps how much can be bought automatically per month; raise it under **Billing** if your product grows.

## Where to see everything
- **Credits** — balance, per-task history, purchases and auto top-up settings.
- **Billing** — plan, invoices, payment method and spending limit.
- **Product hub → Credits** — the same view scoped to one product.
- **Telegram** — `/credits` returns your balance, free of charge.
- **API** — `GET /api/credits/balance`, `GET /api/credits/transactions` and `GET /api/credits/usage-summary`.