How credit works
Written By Paolo Rufrano
Last updated 1 day ago
Credits are what you spend when Percy Chat answers you. Every plan includes a monthly amount, and each response costs credits based on the model behind it.
Percy Chat charges by cost rather than by message count, because a message isn't a fixed thing. A one-line question to a lightweight model and a 5,000-word analysis from a frontier model are both "one message", but one costs a fraction of a cent and the other costs real money. Counting messages would mean either capping you far too early or pricing in the worst case. Credits just measure what you actually used.
What a credit is worth
One credit is about $0.001 of model usage. So 1,000 credits is roughly a dollar's worth of AI.
What that buys varies enormously by model:
A quick question to a small, fast model costs a handful of credits
A long answer from a frontier model costs hundreds
Both the question you send and the answer you get back count. Long conversations cost more per message than short ones, because the whole thread is re-sent to the model every turn. See Message length and context limits.
Free models cost nothing at all. Models with the Free badge never draw credits, on any plan. See Model badges: Free, Credits, Pro and New.
Your two credit balances
You can hold credits in two places, and they behave differently.
Your allowance does not carry over. Unused credits at the end of a period are gone, replaced by a fresh grant. Purchased credits sit underneath as a reserve and are only touched once the allowance is empty, so buying a pack is never wasted, even if you don't use it this month.
See Topping up with credit packs.
When your allowance resets
Free plan: on the 1st of each calendar month.
Pro and Premium: on your subscription's renewal date, which depends on when you subscribed.
Your exact billing period dates are shown at the top of Settings → Usage.
Checking your balance
Go to Settings → Usage. You'll find:
Credits left, how much of your allowance remains, with a progress bar
How many credits you've used this period
Your purchased credits balance, if you've bought any
Recent credits, your last grants and top-ups, dated
Meters for Image Generations and Projects
Your current billing period dates
The balance also updates live as replies come in, so you can watch what an expensive model actually costs you.
Keeping costs down
Use free models for routine questions. They cost nothing and handle most things well.
Turn off thinking and web search when you don't need them. Both add cost. See Advanced thinking and web search.
Start a new chat for a new topic. Every message resends the whole conversation, so a long thread makes each reply more expensive.
Match the model to the task. A frontier model on a trivial question is the most common way to burn credits fast.