Credits explained

Credits are the unit the pipeline charges in. This page is the model: what one credit is, how the per-video cost is calculated, how the ledger works, and how rollover and expiry behave.

What one credit is

One credit is the smallest unit the pipeline tracks. The economy is sized so a long-form video costs hundreds of credits, not fractions. The unit is internal; you don't have to "buy" individual credits, you buy a subscription that allocates credits monthly or a pay-as-you-go top-up that adds them in chunks.

The metered (pay-as-you-go) rate is £0.024 per credit. At that rate:

• 500 credits costs £12.
• 1,000 credits costs £24.
• 2,000 credits costs £48 (or £39 in the 2,000-credit pack, with the volume discount).
• 10,000 credits costs £240 (or £149 in the 10,000-credit pack).

Subscription credits land at a lower effective rate (the per-credit cost drops as the plan size grows; the Scale plan is the cheapest per-credit). See Plans and pricing for the per-plan math.

The credit-cost formula

Pro long-form videos (Documentary and Listicle) cost 100 credits of fixed setup plus 50 credits per target minute. So:

Length	Credits
8 min	500
12 min	700
20 min	1,100
30 min	1,600

Shorts are flat-rate (no per-minute scaling because they're short-form):

Kind	Credits
Auto-extracted from long-form	50
Scratch from a fresh brief	100

Outline-only dry-run mode (preview the outline before committing to the full pipeline) costs 10 credits, regardless of target length. See "Dry run mode" on the brief form.

The credit ledger

Every credit movement, allocation, spend, refund, top-up, is recorded in a ledger. Settings → Billing → Usage shows the full history with timestamps + reasons + balance after each entry.

Ledger reasons (the SQL enum is the source of truth):

purchase. A one-time pack top-up. Positive entry.

subscription_monthly. Your plan's monthly allocation. Positive entry, fires on each renewal.

auto_payg. An auto-PAYG top-up charge. Positive entry; pairs with a charge on your payment method.

refund. A refunded charge, from a cancelled job or a customer-service refund. Positive entry.

admin_adjustment. Operator-side adjustments (rare; usually for customer-service goodwill credits or to correct a bug). Either sign.

video_charge. A per-job admission charge. Negative entry, fires at brief submit.

rollover_capped. A rollover-window cap deducting unused credits at the cap ceiling. Negative entry.

expiry_unused. A scheduled expiry of unused credits past the rollover window. Negative entry.

Each ledger row is immutable. Corrections are made by adding new ledger rows, never editing existing ones.

Rollover

Unused credits at your subscription renewal roll over for 30 days into the next billing period. So credits issued on (say) 15 May expire on 14 July if unused, the 15 May to 14 June period plus the 30-day rollover window.

The 30-day window matches "one full following billing period". It's the most common rollover shape in subscription billing and matches what creators expect.

A renewal warning fires on the dashboard 7 days before the rollover credits expire, with a one-click "see what to do" affordance. The warning is dismissible; it reappears 24 hours later if the credits still haven't been used.

Expiry vs cap

Two distinct mechanisms can deduct unused credits:

rollover_capped fires when your accumulated unused balance would exceed the cap ceiling (set per plan to prevent indefinite accumulation). The excess is deducted at the moment the cap would be breached, logged as rollover_capped, never silently.

expiry_unused fires when the 30-day rollover window elapses with credits unspent. The unspent credits are deducted, logged as expiry_unused, never silently.

Both have distinct ledger reasons so you can see in Settings → Billing → Usage exactly what happened.

PAYG credits don't expire (until they do)

Credits bought via one-time pack purchase or auto-PAYG top-up sit on your balance with the same rollover behaviour as subscription credits, they're indistinguishable in the ledger after they land. So a £149 10,000-credit pack you bought in May still has the 30-day rollover window applied at your subscription renewal.

If you've cancelled your subscription and have unused PAYG credits on the balance, they sit indefinitely; the rollover window only applies on a renewal event. Re-subscribing brings them back into the rollover cycle.

Cost preview before submit

The brief form's live cost preview shows the credit cost AND the cash equivalent (in pounds, at PAYG rates if applicable) before you click submit. The cost preview reads:

• The format (Documentary or Listicle, or Shorts kind).
• The target length.
• The current credit balance.
• The credits the job will charge.
• The balance after (positive if covered, negative if PAYG will trigger).
• The pounds equivalent if PAYG triggers.

You see the cost before you commit. No hidden charges.

Credit history on the dashboard

The dashboard's top rail shows your live balance. Click it to expand a quick breakdown:

• This-month allocation.
• This-month spend.
• Rolled-over credits + their expiry date.
• PAYG top-ups this month + the cap status.

The expanded view links to Settings → Billing → Usage for the full ledger.

What's next

Pay-as-you-go covers the auto-PAYG overage path.

Refund policy covers when refunds apply.

Plans and pricing covers the subscription plans + the founding-member offer.

Cheers,
Carl