# Credits

> Your AI credit balance — buying credits, how long they last, what spends them, and how to see where they went. Plus where email credits live.

Source: https://knowledge.estage.com/account/credits/
Part of the ESTAGE knowledge base (https://knowledge.estage.com). Full corpus: https://knowledge.estage.com/llms-full.txt

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**Credits** are the unit AI work is metered in across ESTAGE. Building in the chat, the AI Agent,
generated images and video, AI on your published site and other AI features all spend from one
balance on your account. You buy them as you need them.

Your balance lives under **Settings → Allocation & credits** in your
[account settings](/account/); what you've spent is under **Settings → Usage**. Your balance also
shows in the profile menu of Genesis and the [Welcome Hub](/getting-started/welcome-hub/) — select it to
go straight to **Allocation & credits**.

## Checking your balance

**Allocation & credits** opens on **AI credits**: the **Credits remaining** card shows your
total. While it loads it shows a dash, not 0 — a real 0 means it's time to top up.

## Buying credits

1. Open **Settings → Allocation & credits**.
2. On the **Credits remaining** card, select **Add credits**.
3. Under **Choose a pack**, pick one: **1K**, **3K**, **10K** (marked **Most popular**) or **35K**
   credits. Or open **Custom amount** and choose any amount from 1,000 to 100,000 credits.
4. Check the total under **You'll pay**.
5. Pick a **Payment method** — a saved card, or **Add a card** to save a new one to your account.
6. Select **Pay** — the button shows the total.

Payment goes through Stripe. The credits are added within moments and the balance refreshes; the
purchase also shows under [Billing & invoices](/account/billing/#invoices).

## How long credits last

- **Bought credits are valid for 12 months from purchase.** Each purchase is its own batch with
  its own end date; when a batch reaches it, whatever is left of it expires.
- **Credits included with a monthly credits plan are spent first**, then bought credits, oldest
  end date first — so the batch closest to expiring is always used first.

## What spends credits

Every AI action is priced by the work it takes, so a long Agent session costs more than a small
edit. The **Usage** tab groups spending into these categories:

| Category | What it covers |
| --- | --- |
| **AI Builder** | Edits and generation in the builder chat, including its suggestions and voice input |
| **AI Agent** (**Ultra**, **Genius**, **Smart**, **Fast**) | Agent coding sessions, by tier. **Ultra** is the most powerful and the most expensive; **Fast** is the cheapest |
| **Blog** | AI-written posts and blog setup |
| **Funnels** | AI funnel generation and audits |
| **Site AI assistant** | AI on your published site — chatbot, smart forms — used by your visitors and billed to you |
| **AI images** | Generated images |
| **AI video** | Generating, dubbing, cleaning and rendering video |
| **CRM AI** | The CRM assistant and its summaries |
| **Localization** | Translating your site into other languages |
| **Mobile app** | Publishing a shareable snapshot of a mobile app |
| **Security scans** | Deep security scans and one-click fixes |
| **Design from reference** | Analyzing a reference site for a redesign |
| **Dedicated Cloud AI** | SQL and function generation in [Dedicated Cloud](/cloud/) |
| **Web fetch** | Fetching outside pages for the AI |
| **Sent to a team member** | Credits you moved to someone on a project |

Coding agents you connect through [Integrations](/account/integrations/) run on your own AI
subscription, so their work doesn't spend Genesis credits.

## Seeing where your credits went

Open **Settings → Usage**.

- **Where your credits go** totals what you spent in the last **7d**, **30d** or **90d**, with the
  number of actions. Switch between **By action** (the categories above) and **By project**.
  Projects that were deleted are grouped together.
- **Detailed history** lists each charge with its date. Credits that came in — a top-up, trial
  credits, plan credits, credits from a team member or added by ESTAGE — are in the same list,
  marked with a **+**. Small background charges, such as prompt suggestions, are grouped into one
  line per day. **Load more** goes further back.

## Giving credits to a collaborator

You can move credits from your balance to someone you share a project or folder with — see
[Members](/project-settings/members/). The move shows in your history as **Sent to a team
member** and in theirs as **From a team member**.

## Email credits

Below AI credits, **Allocation & credits** has an **Email credits** section: the email sending
quota you buy and assign to projects. It is separate from AI credits — buying one doesn't add to
the other. See [Your sending allowance](/email/allowance/).

## Things worth knowing

- **An AI action checks your balance before it starts.** If the balance can't cover it, the
  action doesn't run and you're told you need more credits.
- **Visitors' use of Site AI is billed to you**, the owner of the site, not to the visitor.
- **For small edits, choose a cheaper tier.** The in-app AI Builder and the **Smart** or **Fast**
  Agent tiers cost far less per action than **Ultra**.