AI Credits & Budgets
How the AI assistant is billed: what a message costs, where the money comes from on each plan, how to cap AI spend, and what happens when credits or the cap run out.
The AI assistant is pay-as-you-go. Each message you send is charged for the AI work it takes, and the charge is paid from your organization's credits. You can cap how much the organization spends on AI each billing cycle.
Credits and caps are per organization, not per user or per project. Everyone in the organization draws from the same credits, and the assistant in every project counts toward the same cap.
MCP connections don't use credits. There, the AI model runs in your own tool (Cursor, Claude, and so on) and is billed by that tool's provider. Gamebeast doesn't charge for the calls it answers.
What a message costs
AI models measure work in tokens, which are small chunks of text. A message is charged for:
- Input: everything the model reads to answer. That's your message, the conversation so far, any context you pinned, and the data it looks up while working. Input the model has read recently in the same conversation is billed at a heavy discount.
- Output: everything the model writes, including its thinking.
The price per token depends on the model. Mini Beast is the cheapest, Beast costs more, and Godfrey costs the most. Some of the assistant's background steps, such as searching your project or building a query, always run on Mini Beast whichever model you picked, which keeps them cheap.
Each message is charged once, after it finishes, and costs at least 1¢. If you stop a reply partway through, you're charged for the work done up to that point.
Keeping costs down
- Start a new conversation when you change topic. The whole conversation is re-read on every message, so a long chat makes each new message cost more. Reloading the page or switching project starts a fresh chat.
- Pick the smallest model that does the job. Mini Beast handles lookups ("what events do I track?"). Save Godfrey for hard analysis.
- Turn thinking down for simple questions. Thinking is billed as output, and output costs the most.
- Pin what you mean with + instead of asking the assistant to search for it. See Attach context.
Where the money comes from
| Plan | How AI is paid |
|---|---|
| Free | A one-time $5 AI credit when the organization is created. It doesn't renew. |
| Beast | Prepaid credits. Add credits whenever you like, or turn on auto-reload. Unused credits carry over between billing cycles. |
| Enterprise | Charged to your credits if you have any. Otherwise it's invoiced monthly with the rest of your on-demand usage. |
Credits are shared by all on-demand usage, so AI and on-demand markers draw from the same credits.
Add credits
Anyone with permission to manage billing can add credits from Billing → Overview:
- Add More tops up once, from $5 up to $50,000, using your saved payment method.
- Auto Reload tops up automatically when your credits fall below a threshold you choose, so the assistant never stops mid-week. It needs a saved payment method. If a reload payment fails, auto-reload turns itself off. Fix the payment method and turn it back on.
If auto-reload is off, we email you when your credits run low (below $10 by default, or your auto-reload threshold if you've set one) and again when they run out.
Enterprise
AI usage never stops because of an empty balance on Enterprise. Usage is charged to your credits, and your credits can go below $0. Any negative amount is invoiced as on-demand usage at the end of the billing cycle and then reset to $0. To put a ceiling on AI spend, set an AI cap.
Set an AI cap
An AI cap limits how much your organization can spend on the assistant in each billing cycle. It's a spending limit, not a separate pot of money. AI is still paid from your credits (or your invoice), but it stops once the cap is reached.
To set one, go to Billing → Overview, then under Caps pick AI:
- Off (Uncapped), the default. AI spend is limited only by your credits, or on Enterprise, it's invoiced with no dollar limit.
- On, with an amount. AI stops for the rest of the cycle once that amount has been spent.
- On, at $0. The assistant is turned off for the organization.
Things to know about the cap:
- It resets every billing cycle and stays in place until you change it. You don't need to set it again each month.
- Changes apply immediately. Raising or removing the cap makes the assistant available again straight away.
- You need permission to manage billing to change it. Anyone who can view billing can see it.
Alerts
While a cap is set, we email your billing contact and your organization's admins when AI spend reaches 50%, 75%, 90%, and 100% of the cap. You get at most one email per threshold per cycle.
When you run out
The assistant checks your credits and cap before each message:
| Situation | What you see | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Credits are at $0 or below (Free and Beast) | Your balance is empty | Reload Balance to add credits, or Go to Billing. Free organizations can upgrade. |
| The AI cap for this cycle is used up (any plan) | Your AI budget is exceeded | Manage AI Budget to raise or remove the cap, or wait for the next billing cycle. |
A message that's already running always finishes. If it uses more than your remaining credits, your credits can end up slightly below $0, and the next top-up covers the difference. Until then, the assistant's prompt is disabled.
See what you've spent
Billing → Overview shows:
- Credits: what's left to spend.
- This cycle → AI: what the assistant has cost the organization so far this billing cycle.
- Caps → AI: your current cap, or Uncapped.
On Enterprise, AI usage appears on your monthly invoice as On-demand AI usage.