AI credits
Where AI credits come from and when they expire, what spends them, how to read Budgets & Spend, how to buy a pack, and what happens at zero.
On this page
AI credits are what the organization pays for AI work in. AI credits are spent when the Agent answers, when a workflow's AI step runs, and by the other things listed below. Which provider runs a call, and what the Agent does without AI credits, is in Connect an AI provider. This page is about the balance.
The balance is in Settings > AI > AI Gateway > Budgets & Spend. Every member of the organization can open it; an external user is told that the organization's usage is shown to its own members. Buying needs the Billing right: Owners, Admins and Billing Admins hold it (Roles and permissions).
Where AI credits come from#
The sources a screen shows you:
| Source | How it arrives | When it expires |
|---|---|---|
| Starting AI credits | 100, once, to the first organization an account creates | 30 days after the grant |
| A paid plan | Its monthly AI credits, added each month | At the end of that month |
| A credit pack | One payment; added when the payment is confirmed | After the pack's term, which the billing catalog sets: see pricing |
| An invoice | SalexHub adds them on request | On the day the grant names |
On SalexHub's hosted service the starting AI credits do not open AI by themselves; the provider page explains which AI credits do.
What expires soonest is spent first. An AI credit that has expired is left out of the balance at once, whether or not it has been written off yet. Budgets & Spend shows no expiry dates; it shows the balance without them.
What spends AI credits#
Budgets & Spend groups spending by Consumer:
| Consumer | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Agent chat | One chat turn |
| Workflows | One workflow run's AI steps |
| Autonomous agents | One agent run |
| Site agent | One answer to a visitor |
| Record briefs | One press of a record summary |
| Memory distillation | New conversations turned into proposed memory for an admin to review |
| Fields filled from activities | Filling a record's properties from its activities |
| Minis set up from a sentence | An agent drafted from a sentence you typed |
| Meeting debriefs | A summary and tasks from a meeting transcript |
| Voice transcription | A voice note or dictation turned into text |
| AI Gateway API | A call made with an AI Gateway API key |
| Unattributed | Older work, or work this page cannot name |
How a call is priced#
- The price starts from the model's list price in SalexHub's model catalog.
- A whole call is rounded up to whole AI credits, and is never less than one.
- A call that runs on your own provider key is charged less than one SalexHub's provider pays for, because only the work around the call is ours.
- A model the catalog has no price for shows Unpriced on the Models page. Its calls are billed an estimate, and the per-answer limit is not enforced.
Before a chat turn starts, the platform reserves the most that turn may spend, worked out from the model that will answer. When the turn ends, it charges what was used and releases the rest. A turn needs enough room for its steps to start; when it does not have it, the Agent says so.
Read Budgets & Spend#
A control at the top sets the window: Last 7 days, Last 30 days or Last 90 days.
- Available now is the balance less what running work has reserved. The line under it shows both figures.
- Spent is what was consumed in the window. Beside it: AI credits granted, AI credits reversed after a refund or a dispute, and, only when it happened, how much of the spending was more than the balance held. That part is recorded as owed.
- Consumption breakdown stacks each day, week or month by consumer, model or person. The table below it lists the same three cuts with each share. For a model it also shows how much of the input the prompt cache served. Work no person ran, such as a scheduled run, is one row.
- Most expensive AI invocations lists the ten dearest units of work. One row is a chat turn, a run or a summary, priced at everything it used, not one call to a model.
Nothing caps what the organization can spend yet; the page says so.
Buy a credit pack#
The Buy AI credits card is on Budgets & Spend and on Billing. It has one button per pack on sale, with the pack's AI credits and its price in the organization's currency. The packs and prices come from the billing catalog, not from this page.
- Choose a pack. SalexHub may ask you to confirm it is you first.
- Pay on the payment page that opens.
- Come back to Budgets & Spend. The page says "Payment received" and the AI credits arrive when the payment is confirmed. If you stopped at checkout, it says "Checkout was canceled. Nothing was charged."
The card says why it has no buttons:
- AI credit packs are not on sale.
- "Only a person with the billing permission can buy credits. Ask an Owner, an Admin or a Billing Admin to top up from this page."
- Buying AI credits online is not switched on: ask SalexHub support to add credits against an invoice.
A refund or a chargeback takes AI credits back out of the balance in proportion to the money returned, never more than the pack. The page says how many were reversed and how many of those were already spent.
At zero#
- No AI credits left. The next chat message is answered "You're out of AI credits", naming the people who can add them.
- Too few to start a turn. The answer says what one turn costs at least, for the model that would have answered, and what the organization has.
- Your monthly assignment is spent. Where someone with the Billing right has assigned you a monthly amount of the organization's AI credits and it is used up, the Agent says so and names the people who can assign more, even while the organization still has AI credits.
- A turn that runs past the balance. The balance stops at zero. The rest is recorded as owed and shows on Budgets & Spend.
- Your own provider key. It does not remove the need for AI credits: they still pay for the work around each call.