AI credits
Credits pay for AI work. They are counted from model tokens, 10,000 tokens per credit. Free has 25 once; paid plans refill monthly. Tasks can have their own budget.
Updated 2026-10-13
What spends credits
- Research and competitor scans.
- Building or regenerating a plan (the first successful roadmap is free).
- The weekly review (about 0.25 credits).
- Every Pytheus and employee turn: model calls that think, use tools and write.
- Task checks, check-ins and reviews.
- Document drafts and canvas AI.
- Work started from your own AI tool over MCP or REST.
What does not
- Reading your plan or Library, in the app or over MCP.
- Listing tools, initialising or pinging the REST gateway.
- Computer time, which is counted separately.
How they are counted
Credits come from model tokens: 10,000 tokens is one credit. Each model call is recorded with its provider, model and usage. Where the provider does not report tokens, the count is estimated from the size of the text and flagged as estimated.
Free, monthly and unlimited
| Plan | Credits |
|---|---|
| Free | 25, one time. They do not refill. |
| Base | 100 a month. |
| Premium | 500 a month. |
Settings shows your usage this cycle, the date credits refill, usage by feature (where your recent credits went) and your last 50 AI actions, newest first.
Budgets stop runaway work
- Per-task budget. Every model call for a task is recorded against it. With no explicit budget a task gets a default of 15% of your plan’s monthly credits, between 5 and 50. At the budget it stops and tells you. See Tracked tasks.
- Reservations. Before a model call a worker sets aside an estimate (about 1.5 credits for an agent turn, 0.4 for a short call). Others see it as spent until the real usage is recorded, so several workers starting together cannot overspend one balance.
- One accounting path. Work checks, check-in text and prompt tools are gated and recorded the same way as everything else.
When you run out
The next AI action stops with “You are out of AI credits for now” and the upgrade prompt opens. Nothing already made is lost. Over MCP, the error code is insufficient_credits with advice to check get_credit_balance.
In a shared workspace
Credit use is shown per member for the current billing period, so you can see who used what.