Credits and usage

What a credit buys, which features spend them, how to read the usage ledger, and what to do when the balance runs low.

Updated October 2026Billing2 of 3

Short answer

Credits are Akili’s unit of metered usage. Every plan includes a monthly allowance that resets each calendar month; in a team workspace that allowance is pooled across members. Model calls, deep research, Maps, image generation, voice and Studio generation spend credits. Watch the balance and the ledger in Settings → Usage & Credits, and add one-time credit packs there when you need more.

What a credit is

Included credits come from your plan’s monthly allowance. The pricing page shows each plan’s amount: a monthly total on individual plans and a per-seat amount on team plans. Enterprise is unlimited.
The period is the UTC calendar month. The included balance is reset to the plan amount on your first activity after the month ends, and the ledger records a MONTHLY_RESET row. Unused included credits do not carry over.
Purchased credits sit in a second balance that rolls over and never expires. Spending takes from included credits first, then from purchased ones.
Per seat, pooled in a team. Team plans include a per-seat allowance, and every seat’s share goes into one organization balance that all members draw from. Small teams get the plan’s floor when it is larger than the per-seat total. The acting member is recorded on each row, so admins can still see who used what.

What uses credits

Features that spend credits and how they are metered
Feature	How it is charged
Model calls	An estimate is reserved before each call and settled to actual tokens at that model's rate; at least 1 credit per metered call. Chat, agents, Flows agent steps and Council member seats all go through this path.
Deep research	One charge per research turn, tiered against a per-period search allowance.
Web search	Recorded as usage only; no credit charge for an ordinary search in chat or a flow.
Maps and places	Charged per place search or details request; free operations are skipped.
Council	The balance is checked before the turn starts, then each seat's model call is metered as above.
Image generation	Charged per image in Flows and in Studio slide images.
Voice	Read-aloud (text to speech) is charged per request from your personal balance.
Studio generation	Presentation, document and design generation is charged per job from your personal balance.
Social publishing	Posts, series, writing assist and AI drafts are charged per action.
Marketplace agents	A listing may add a per-chat surcharge, shown on the listing.
Skills	No separate charge; a skill's model calls are metered like any other.

Usage & Credits in Settings

Open Settings and choose Usage & Credits (?settings=usage). Inside an organization a Personal / Organization toggle switches between the two balances.

Remaining this period, consumed, projected end of period and the period dates. A banner appears at 50% and 80% used.
Recent transactions (personal view): the last 20 ledger rows, each typed as reserve, settle, top-up or monthly reset and labeled with the model id or the service (Web search, Deep research search, Maps search, Social post, Presentation generation, Marketplace agent, Platform service).
Organization view: a credits-per-day chart for the last month and a usage-by-member table.
Model quality (nightly score): a table of thumbs up and down, regenerations and shadow-pass results per model and task.
Purchase history of credit packs, and the Add credits and Spending controls blocks described below.

When credits run out

By default, usage pauses at zero: the ledger refuses new reservations with insufficient_balance (HTTP 402, code credits.insufficient_balance). A chat turn shows “You’ve used this month’s credits” with Buy credits and Compare plans links, and Maps, voice, Studio generation, social actions, marketplace surcharges and image steps in Flows stop with a “Not enough credits” message. To keep going without a pause, turn on auto-refill in Settings → Usage & Credits.

Members who cannot buy see a Need more credits? card with Request credits, which sends an in-app notification to the organization’s owners and admins.
Flows report flow.credits_exhausted on a step that was refused, and flow.budget_exceeded when a run or step hits its own credit cap.

Add credits

Step 1
Open Add credits
In Settings → Usage & Credits, scroll to Add credits. Buying for an organization needs the credits purchase permission.
Step 2
Pick a pack or a custom amount
Choose one of the fixed packs or enter a custom amount. The price of each pack is shown on the page.
Step 3
Continue to secure checkout
Press Continue to secure checkout. Payment is a one-time Stripe charge; when it completes, the credits are added to the purchased balance with a TOPUP row and appear in Purchase history.

Spending controls

Monthly purchase cap. Set a ceiling for credit purchases per month. A checkout that would exceed it is refused with “This purchase would exceed the monthly credit purchase cap.”
Low-balance alerts. A switch that marks the 50%, 80% and 100% thresholds for notifications; the usage page shows the same thresholds as banners.
Platform spend caps. Operators of your Akili deployment can cap spend or request rates per model. A capped request fails with MODEL_SPEND_CAP_EXCEEDED or MODEL_RATE_CAP_EXCEEDED and the acting user is warned in-app and by email.

Your own provider keys

An organization can bring its own keys for Azure, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral, xAI, Perplexity and OpenRouter (see Organization). Metering does not change: the credit rate is tied to the model, not to whose key served the call, so calls through your key are still reserved and settled at that model’s rate. The ledger records which provider and credential handled each call. Your provider bills you separately for the tokens it served.

Usage visibility for organization admins

Any member can see the organization balance, the monthly report and the credits-per-day series in the Organization view of Usage & Credits.
Usage by member needs the audit-read permission (owners and admins by default).
Settings → Analytics covers adoption and retention of members and agents; it carries no credit figures. Credits per member live in Usage & Credits.
Mobile has the same credits screen under Settings → Credits.

Good to know

Reserved, then settled. A long answer may show a reserve row larger than the final settle row; only the settled amount is spent.
Limits are separate from credits. Messages per day, knowledge bases and storage are plan limits and apply even with a full balance. See Plans and billing.
Projected end extrapolates your pace through the period; it is a forecast, not a cap.
Trials spend credits too. A trialing workspace has the plan’s full allowance for the trial period.

Frequently asked questions

Do unused credits roll over to next month?

Included credits do not; they reset to the plan amount on the first activity after the UTC month ends. Purchased credits roll over and never expire, and they are only spent once the included balance is gone.

How many credits does one message cost?

It depends on the model and the length of the exchange. Akili reserves an estimate before the call and settles to the actual tokens afterwards, at that model's rate, with a minimum of one credit per metered call. The Recent transactions list in Settings → Usage & Credits shows the settled amount for each call.

Is web search charged differently from deep research and Maps?

An ordinary web search in chat is recorded as usage but not charged. Deep research is charged once per research turn against a per-period search allowance, and Maps place searches are charged per request.

I use my own OpenAI or Azure key. Am I still charged credits?

Yes. Metering is per model, not per key, so a call served by your own provider key costs the same credits as one served by Akili's. The provider also bills you directly for the tokens it served.

Can members buy credits for the organization?

Only members with the credits purchase permission (owners and billing roles by default). Other members see a Request credits button that notifies the organization's owners and admins in-app.