Credits
What credits cost, where they come from, how refunds work.
Credits are the meter for AI consumption: GEO runs, agent actions and content briefs. Quotas (prompts, keywords, projects) gate configuration; credits gate execution.
What things cost
| Action | Credits | Configurable? |
|---|---|---|
GEO run (per prompt × engine) | 1 | No — fixed |
| Agent chat message | 1 | No — fixed |
| Agent full analysis (manual Run analysis; the scheduled weekly analysis is free) | 5 | No — fixed |
| Content brief | 10 | Yes — platform default, admin-adjustable |
The platform admin can change the brief cost; everything else is fixed in the API (each page of these docs states the fixed numbers where they apply).
Where credits come from
- Sign-up welcome grant — Free accounts receive a one-time 50-credit grant at sign-up (Free has no recurring monthly grant).
- Billing-period grant — paid plans grant their credits (1,000 / 5,000 /
25,000) only on subscription invoices whose billing reason is
subscription_createorsubscription_cycle: a monthly subscription grants the monthly amount per paid cycle; a yearly subscription grants 12× the monthly amount once per year. Proration and threshold invoices (partial charges mid-cycle) do not grant anything. - Top-up packs — one-off purchases from Settings → Billing.
- Trial grants — the 14-day trial includes working credits.
- (Self-hosted) Admin grants — the platform console can credit an organization directly.
Refunds — automatic, never silent
- A failed GEO run (engine error) refunds its credit.
- A failed agent chat/analysis (provider error) refunds in full — the UI copy never claims a charge when the refund landed.
- A failed brief refunds the pre-charged amount; if even the refund fails, the platform flags it for a manual grant rather than dropping it silently. Note: if the AI call fails but the generator falls back to a template brief and returns it successfully, that is a delivered brief — charged, not refunded.
Expiry
Credits granted per billing period expire at the end of their validity window. Expiry is settled lazily but consistently: the next consumption (or a periodic sweep) settles expired grants first, so your visible balance is always spendable credit.
Running out
- Actions are pre-checked: attempting a run with insufficient credits
returns
402 insufficient_credits(the dashboard surfaces this as an upgrade prompt) — you never half-spend into a broken state. - GEO also enforces the daily run quota per plan independently of the balance.
Watching usage
Settings → Usage shows the last-30-days usage breakdown (runs, briefs, agent actions) alongside the credit balance. The window is a fixed trailing 30 days — it is not aligned to your subscription's billing period.