Understanding AI credits
What a credit is, how many you get per plan, when to top up, and what happens when you run out.
Last updated April 19, 2026
AI credits are Protodesk's unit of AI usage. Everything model-powered — triage, Ticket Context refreshes, Suggest drafts, auto-resolve, follow-ups, rewrites, and knowledge chat — consumes credits. Everything else (reading, replying manually, searching, settings) is free.
What consumes credits
The common actions are:
- Triage — 1 credit per ticket when the AI auto-triage pass runs
- Ticket Context — 1 credit when the shared context refreshes after inbound customer messages or manual refresh
- Suggest — 2 credits when generating the multi-variant reply set, 1 credit to regenerate one variant
- Auto-resolve — 2 credits per attempt (whether or not a reply is sent)
- Follow-up / Improve / Polish — 1 credit per generated draft or rewrite
- Knowledge chat — 1 credit per chat turn
Manual replies, canned responses, reading tickets, browsing customers, and searching are zero credits.
Monthly allocation by plan
| Plan | Monthly credits | Typical usage |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 0 | Manual only (buy top-ups to use AI) |
| Starter ($14.99/mo) | 250 | ~125 tickets/mo with full AI |
| Pro ($29.99/mo) | 1,000 | ~500 tickets/mo |
| Business ($59.99/mo) | 2,500 | ~1,250 tickets/mo |
| Enterprise | Custom | Scaled to your volume |
Credits reset on your billing date. Unused credits from your monthly allocation do not roll over. Purchased top-up credits roll over forever.
Top-up packs
Buy more credits any time from Settings → Billing → Credits.
| Pack | Price | Per-credit cost |
|---|---|---|
| 100 credits | $5 | $0.050 |
| 500 credits | $20 | $0.040 |
| 2,500 credits | $80 | $0.032 |
Purchased credits never expire. They stack on top of your monthly allocation.
What happens when you run out
AI actions pause. Specifically:
- Triage stops running on new tickets (tickets still arrive, just unlabeled)
- Ticket Context stops refreshing, so Suggest and auto-resolve may rely on the latest saved context
- Auto-resolve stops attempting replies
- Suggest, follow-ups, and rewrite tools stop generating drafts
Your inbox continues to work normally. Humans reply manually. You get an in-app banner prompting you to top up or wait for the next reset.
There's no overdraft, no per-action billing, no surprise charges. If you don't have credits, AI just doesn't run.
How to reduce credit usage
A few levers if your credits are running out faster than expected:
- Let Ticket Context do the first pass. It refreshes once after inbound bursts and is reused by the panel, Suggest, auto-resolve, handoff, and KB gap logging.
- Turn off auto-resolve for ambiguous categories. Billing and sales questions rarely auto-resolve cleanly. Settings → AI → Auto-resolve → "Skip labels: [billing, sales]"
- Triage only on specific channels. If WhatsApp volume is 10× your email volume, disable triage for WhatsApp by default. Settings → AI → Triage → "Channels: [email]"
- Use one Suggest regeneration instead of rerunning the whole set. Regenerating a single variant costs less than producing all variants again.
Per-workspace vs per-user
Credits are workspace-level, not per-agent. If you have a 10-agent team on Pro (900 credits/mo), that's 900 total — agents share the pool. This is deliberate: it prevents the scenario where one busy agent starves everyone else, and it simplifies billing.
Credit history and audit
Every credit consumption is logged with timestamp, action type, ticket ID where relevant, and AI agent attribution where relevant. View in Settings → Billing → Credits → "History".
We don't log the full prompt content in the credit ledger — just the metadata. See our Privacy Policy for full data handling details.
Questions we hear
"Can I buy enough credits to run AI for a year?" Yes. Buy 2,500-credit packs; they stack and never expire. Math-wise, a workspace doing ~100 AI actions/day would need ~36,000 credits for a year. That's ~$1,200 in top-ups (or just Business plan × 12 = $480 with 36,000 included if you use all of it).
"Can I get a refund on unused credits?" Purchased credits are non-refundable, but they never expire — use them when you need them, even years from now.
"What if AI provider prices go up?" We absorb reasonable variance. If underlying model costs change dramatically, we'd adjust credit pricing for new purchases — existing credits retain their value.
Summary
- Most AI actions cost 1 credit; Suggest multi-variant generation and auto-resolve cost 2 credits
- Monthly allocation resets on billing date; top-ups never expire
- Running out pauses AI only — manual support keeps working
- Tune which AI features run where to control consumption
Questions? Email us.