Understand credits, plans and invoices

Credits are for AI work, not for sending

This article is part of the Mailprompt help centre. It explains the billing model in plain terms and answers the questions that come up in the first month.

A plan has two allowances that behave differently. The email allowance covers delivery: one marketing message to one recipient. The credit allowance covers AI work: writing an email, generating subject lines, building a flow, explaining results, creating an image or running the account audit. Sending itself does not consume credits, and reading data is free.

The separation matters because a store can have a quiet AI month and a busy sending month, or the reverse. Bundling both into one number would make the bill harder to predict, not easier. The pricing page lists what each plan includes.

How a credit charge works

Every chargeable action follows the same three steps. First, the action holds the expected number of credits from the available balance. A hold is not a charge: it reserves the amount so two actions cannot spend the same credits. Second, if the action succeeds, the hold becomes a charge. Third, if the action fails, the hold is released and the credits return.

The ledger records each step with the action, the amount, the time and a reference. A held amount that never resolves is a bug, not a billing decision, so the ledger is the place to look when a balance seems wrong. The API exposes the same account and credit information under /v1/credits.

Monthly credits reset at renewal and do not carry over. Top-up credits are different: they last twelve months and are spent after the monthly allowance, oldest first. If you buy a top-up, use it for a busy launch rather than assuming it will sit there indefinitely.

Daily caps

Each plan has a daily credit cap in addition to the monthly allowance. The cap exists to stop a runaway loop, an accidental bulk generation or a compromised key from consuming a month of credits in an hour. When the cap is reached, further chargeable actions are refused until the next day or until the cap is raised by an owner on a higher plan.

The cap is visible in Settings. It is not a suggestion: the product enforces it on the server, so raising it in the browser does nothing. If a legitimate project needs more, upgrade the plan or split the work across days.

Emails, overage and upgrades

The email allowance resets monthly. If a month's sends exceed it, the account either continues at the published overage rate per extra thousand emails or stops and asks for an upgrade, depending on the billing setting. Overage is shown before the month closes, so a surprise at renewal should not happen.

Upgrades are immediate and prorated. Downgrades apply at the next renewal; the billing tab shows how the current usage would have looked under the smaller plan. That preview is the honest way to choose a downgrade: if the current month would already have exceeded the smaller allowance, the next month probably will too.

Open the billing tab to see the current plan, the next renewal date, the email and credit usage, the invoices and the payment method. Invoices and receipts are downloaded from the same place.

The trial

A new account starts with a 14-day trial. A card is required at signup so the account can move to a paid plan without a second checkout, but nothing is charged during the trial. When the trial ends, the selected plan begins and the first invoice is issued.

Cancelling before the trial ends stops the subscription charge. It does not delete the account immediately; the data retention rules in the privacy notice apply. If you are evaluating Mailprompt for a client, use the Agency plan's client seats rather than creating several trials.

Failed payments and cancellation

If a renewal payment fails, the account enters a past-due state. Sending continues for a short grace period while the payment method is retried, then pauses until the balance is settled. The app shows the state and the retry date; it does not silently downgrade the account or delete data.

Cancelling is available to owners and admins in the billing tab. The plan stays active until the end of the paid period, and the account becomes read-only after that until it is exported or closed. Export contacts, events and templates before closing: after the retention window, a closed account cannot be restored.

Where to get help

Billing questions that the screen cannot answer should include the invoice number and the account id, never a full card number. Support can see the ledger and the invoice history; it cannot see or change your card details, which stay with the payment processor.

For the free parts of the product, start with the API keys guide if you are connecting a client, or the getting started guide if you are still setting up.