# How credits work

> What credits pay for, what is always free, how one request is charged, how credits refresh and roll over, and where to see what you've spent.

Last updated: October 16, 2026

Source: https://www.willo.ai/docs/plans/how-credits-work

Credits measure the work Willo's AI does for you. Your plan gives your organization a pool of them each month, shared by every business in it.

## What's free

- Chatting with Willo and asking questions.
- Willo reading your site, files and data, and looking things up: your plan, your deploys, where something lives.
- Checking the roadmap, logging decisions, and browsing the dashboard.
- The free edit tools over the preview: the **Brand** drawer, **Edit text**, and editing text directly with **Select**. A change you describe to Willo through Select is an ordinary request.
- Your own AI agent's reads and changes over MCP. Only handing Willo a whole task with `willo_task` is charged, as one chat request.

A request that only talks and reads costs nothing.

## What uses credits

Work that produces something: research, writing a document, editing or adding pages, a redesign, a coding session, sending an email campaign. Roughly, a targeted edit or a short piece of research is small, a campaign is medium, and a coding session or a full rebuild is large.

## How one request is charged

Each message you send is charged once, when Willo finishes it, not step by step. The charge reflects the actual work: the more Willo had to read, think through and produce, the more it costs. A long, involved request costs more than a quick one, and asking Willo to chain several small steps doesn't multiply the charge. Some heavy kinds of work, such as a coding session, have a minimum. Charges round up to the nearest quarter of a credit.

Credits are charged for the work done, whether or not the result was what you wanted. A request that fails on Willo's side before producing anything isn't charged; for anything else that went wrong on Willo's side, contact support.

A request needs at least a quarter of a credit available to start billed work. Once started, it always finishes, even if it takes your balance below zero.

Chatting while your business's first build runs is free.

## Monthly credits, rollover and top-ups

- **Plan credits** refresh each month on your billing date. The Free plan's credits are a one-time grant that doesn't refresh.
- **Rollover**: on plans that include it, unused plan credits carry into the next month, up to one month's worth. On plans without it, unused plan credits end at renewal. See the **Credit rollover** row in [What each plan includes](https://www.willo.ai/docs/reference/plans).
- **Top-ups** are credits you buy once. They never expire, and they're kept even if your plan ends. Willo spends plan credits first. See [Buy more credits](https://www.willo.ai/docs/plans/buy-more-credits).

## Seeing what you've spent

- The **credits** chip at the bottom of the left rail shows your balance. It turns amber when a fifth is left, and red when almost none is. Its menu lists recent credit activity in this business.
- **Details** on the **Billing** page has a **Breakdown** (plan credits including rollover, purchased, top-up and bonus credits) and a **History**. Chat charges in the history show the request that caused them and what Willo did.
- Ask Willo: "what did my last few requests cost?"

On a paying plan, Willo also warns you in the dashboard when half of this month's plan credits are used, again at a fifth left (with an email), and when you've run out.

## Running out

With no credits left, Willo still answers and reads, but billed work stops until you top up, upgrade, or your credits refresh. Your sites stay live. See [Out of credits](https://www.willo.ai/docs/troubleshooting/billing#out-of-credits).

## Unattended work

The Growth Engine and Agent Programs spend the same credits when they run on their own. The daily budget in **Settings → Autonomy** covers the Growth Engine and scheduled programs, and each program also has its own cap.

Related: [Choose a plan](https://www.willo.ai/docs/plans/choose-a-plan), [Backend usage](https://www.willo.ai/docs/plans/backend-usage).