One balance sits behind the whole workspace, so every device and every member spends from the same one. It is held in US dollars and it falls as work happens, rather than arriving as a bill at the end of the month.
An Individual workspace is given $5 a month. Team and Enterprise workspaces buy what they need up front. What comes off the balance is what the work cost at the AI provider's own price, with nothing added on top.
What spends credit
Four AI steps run in the cloud, and each one draws on the balance:
- "Writing steps" - turns what happened on screen into readable steps.
- "Splitting recordings" - cuts a working session into one recording per task.
- "Writing questions" - decides when a recording needs a question and writes it.
- "Writing documents" - writes the documents in a library.
Two smaller jobs draw on it as well. Spoken answers to questions are transcribed, and searching by meaning costs a little each time someone searches.
Free credit and top-ups
Credit reaches a workspace two ways:
- Free monthly credit
- Top-ups
Free credit is for the Individual plan alone, and none of it carries into the next month.
An Individual workspace is granted its $5 at the start of each calendar month. Whatever is left of that grant when the month ends is gone, so a quiet month builds nothing up for a busy one.
Any workspace can buy more. The smallest top-up is $5, and the card fee plus any tax for your country are added on top at checkout, so the whole amount you choose arrives as credit. Individual workspaces buy credit in the desktop app, on its Usage page. Team and Enterprise workspaces buy it in the dashboard, where the Usage page is open only to members whose role includes "Manage billing".
Auto top-up
A saved card can refill the balance on its own. Turning it on takes two figures, "When balance falls below" and "Top-up amount", and the card is charged for the second whenever the balance drops under the first. Each automatic charge adds the card fee and tax exactly as a manual one does.
A workspace with it turned on gets no warning email about a low balance, because the balance is refilled before it can matter. It needs a card on file, and it can be turned off again at any time.
Your own AI provider
The Individual plan cannot supply its own key, so all of its AI work comes off the balance.
A workspace can run the AI on an account it owns instead. One OpenRouter key covers everything, from the four steps to search and spoken answers.
Work that runs on your own key is billed to you by the provider and never touches the balance. Remove the key and every AI feature goes back to drawing on the balance.
Running out
Nothing is lost when the balance reaches zero, but new AI work stops. Recording will not start, and the desktop app says why and points to the place credit can be added. Document writing is refused and the recordings waiting on it stay where they are, to be written once credit is back. Searching by meaning stops until then.
Two emails go out around that point: one when the balance is running low, another when it is empty. Both reach the members who can manage billing, and both can be turned off in the workspace notification settings.
A piece of work already under way is charged in full, so the balance can finish a little below zero and the next top-up covers the difference. A workspace whose card is past due is stopped the same way even with credit left, and only a working card starts it again.
When credit expires
A top-up lasts a year from the day it is bought. Free monthly credit lasts to the end of the month it was granted in. Whatever is left of either when its time is up comes off the balance and cannot be brought back.
The credit closest to expiring is always spent first, so free credit goes before bought credit and an early top-up goes before a later one.
Credit cannot be moved to another workspace or exchanged for cash, and what is left is not refunded when a workspace cancels, except where the law requires it.