What are credits?

Credits are how OverSkill measures the AI work you use. Here's what one credit gets you and how to read the meter.

Credits are how OverSkill measures the AI work you use to build, change, and improve your apps. Every plan includes a monthly bundle of credits, and you can top up any time you need more.

What uses credits

Anything where the AI is doing work for you:

• Building a new app from a description
• Adding a new feature
• Fixing a problem
• Redesigning a page
• Importing data or connecting an integration

Looking at your app, navigating around, publishing, sharing — none of that uses credits. You only pay for the AI's brainpower.

Every message in the builder chat uses credits

Worth being blunt about, because it surprises people: every message you send in the builder chat runs the AI and uses credits — including plain questions. Which page is the form on?, can you do X?, why did that cost so much? all run a full request, because the AI reads and understands your whole app before answering. There's no free message type in the builder.

And pasting or uploading content costs more, not less. When you paste a long document — a framework, a spec, a transcript — all of that text goes into the request, so that turn is usually one of your more expensive ones. If you've been told anywhere that uploading content is free, that's wrong.

If you want to ask questions without the meter running, ask us instead — support replies are always free.

Does AI inside your published app use credits?

Yes. If you've built AI features into the app you publish — an AI chatbot, image generation, text or audio generation powered by OverSkill — then every time one of your app's users runs that AI, it uses your credits, not just the work you do while building. This keeps going for as long as your app is live and people are using those features.

So if your app does AI work for your visitors, budget for it the same way you budget for building. It helps to estimate roughly how many AI actions your users will take each month, and to keep an eye on your balance after launch.

The one exception: if you connected your own outside AI account to power those features, that usage is billed to that account instead of your OverSkill credits.

What one credit gets you

Hard to put a single number on it — simpler requests use fewer credits, big builds use more. We use the most capable AI available for every request (the same models professional developers pay top dollar for), so even a small request involves the AI reading and understanding your whole app before it makes a change. Based on real usage across the platform:

• A typical request (one change or improvement): 400–1,500 credits, with most landing around 700
• A larger feature (new page, new workflow): 1,000–4,000 credits
• A complete fresh build (from a description to a working first version): 2,000–8,000 credits, with most landing around 4,000–5,000

Those are the real middle-of-the-pack numbers — a bigger redesign everything ask runs higher, a small copy tweak runs lower. As a reference point, the credits in a $40 Starter Pack (5,000) cover roughly one fresh build plus a few tweaks, or about seven typical changes.

You'll see a credit estimate before any big change runs, so you're never surprised.

Do questions cost less than changes?

Usually a little, but never nothing. Asking the AI to explain or plan something uses the same AI model and still reads your entire app so the answer is accurate — and that reading step is a real part of what any message costs. A short question (list my pages, what does this button do?) is cheaper than a full build, but it isn't free.

Where planning saves you money is over a whole session: thinking an idea through before you build means the build is more likely to be right the first time, so you waste fewer expensive retries. It's a session-level saving, not a per-question discount.

How to check your balance

Your current balance is in the top-right corner of the editor and on every page of your account. The number ticks down as you use credits and refills on your billing date.

When you run low

Two things happen automatically:

1. A warning appears in the editor when you hit 20% of your monthly bundle.
2. A second warning when you hit zero — but you don't get cut off mid-build. Anything currently running finishes.

To keep building, you can:

• Top up with a credit pack (one-time purchase, no auto-renew)
• Upgrade to a plan with a bigger monthly bundle
• Wait until next month — your bundle refills automatically on your renewal date

Two ways credits show up on your bill

• Subscription credits: included in your monthly plan. Use them or lose them — they don't roll over.
• Credit packs: bought separately as one-time top-ups. These DO roll over and never expire.

When you build, OverSkill uses your subscription credits first, then dips into any credit packs you've bought.

What about errors and retries?

Building with AI is iterative. Sometimes a generation hits an error, or the first attempt isn't quite right and you ask for a follow-up. That's normal — it's how building with AI works in 2026, on every AI tool, not just OverSkill.

Those generations still use credits, even when they error, because the AI did real work to produce the attempt. We don't think that should be a surprise, so here's the honest version: some credit spend on errors and back-and-forth is part of the process.

The good news is we work hard to keep it small. OverSkill goes beyond the raw AI models — we automatically catch and fix many common build errors, trim how much the AI has to process, and show you a credit estimate before big changes run. That means less wasted spend than using the models directly. You can keep it even lower with clear prompts, and by nailing down the idea before you build — say don't change anything yet and agree on the plan first (note: those messages still cost credits — it's the fewer wasted build passes that save you money). See Why errors and retries still use credits for the full picture, and How to ask the AI for changes for the habits that stretch your credits furthest.

Frequently asked

Does using the AI agent in chat use credits? Yes. Anything that talks to the AI.

Do new accounts get credits to start? Yes — every new account starts with credits so you can build something real before you pick a plan.

Can teams share a credit pool? Yes. Credits live at the workspace level, so everyone on the team draws from the same balance. See Account & team.

Why do some changes cost more than I expected? Big rewrites (e.g. redesign the whole app) and changes that span many pages use more credits than narrow, specific asks. See How to ask the AI for changes — clear prompts are cheaper prompts.

Why did a tiny prompt still cost a fair number of credits? Because even a small change starts with the AI reading and understanding your whole app for context. That understand the app first step is a real part of what any request costs, so a short prompt isn't necessarily a cheap one.

Is asking a question cheaper than asking for a change? Usually a little, but it's never free — the AI still reads your app to answer. Planning first lowers your total spend on a big, fuzzy ask by avoiding repeated wrong-turn rebuilds. See Where did plan mode go?.

Need more credits?

Open the credit balance widget in the top-right corner and click Get more credits. You can top up, upgrade your plan, or both.