SU & Billing

UpServe uses a single unit, SU (AI usage unit), for everything you pay for. AI model responses, browser and computer automation, image generation, and other actions all draw from your SU balance. You can see at a glance whether you’re running low from the SU icon in the header; the exact number and full history live under Settings → SU balance & usage.

This page covers (1) what a SU is, (2) what spends it, and (3) where to check your balance or manage your plan subscription.

What is a SU?

A SU is UpServe’s single usage unit. Instead of thinking about tokens, calls, or bytes, you only need to think about SU.

• All usage (model responses, tool runs) is computed internally and converted to SU before being deducted.
• SU are spent in three priority groups: (1) welcome boost (Getting started rewards), (2) subscription and weekly SU, (3) SU granted by the UpServe team. Within each group, SU closest to expiration are used first; SU with no expiration date are always last.
• When your balance reaches zero, your AI employees can’t start new work. Move up to a higher plan to keep going.
• Starting September 2026, the SU conversion rate was adjusted, so the same task may now cost more SU than it used to. (See “Advanced” below for more on this.)
• If an employee’s run gets cut off unexpectedly partway through, you’re billed exactly for what it actually used up to that point, no more and no less.
• The exact balance shown under Settings → SU balance & usage is always formatted to one decimal place (e.g. 1,234.5). Very small deductions (like an internal helper-model call) show as < 0.1, so a real deduction never silently rounds down to “0.0”. The header badge also shows this exact number at all times; only its color changes as your balance runs low (see “Checking your balance” below for the color thresholds).

What spends SU?

Two kinds of activity consume SU.

1. AI model responses

Every time an employee answers you or decides its next step, it calls an AI model. This is the most common source of spending.

• The same question can cost very different amounts depending on the employee’s AI performance tier (Standard or Ultra).
• Longer conversations carry more context with each reply, so each response costs a bit more as a thread grows.
• The What to delegate conversation you go through when installing a template with customization also draws SU like any other conversation (if you belong to a contracted organization, it’s billed to the organization instead of your personal balance).

2. Tools & computer usage

When an employee doesn’t just “talk” but actually acts, it runs tools. Some tools use external resources, which draw SU separately on top of AI model usage.

• Computer use / browser automation: runs on the employee’s dedicated AI work computer. You’re billed for the time it stays active.
• Image generation: charged based on resolution and the number of images produced or edited.
• Web search: a small charge applies for each call to the external search provider.

In your transaction history, model responses and image generation appear as “AI model usage,” while spend that uses external resources (computer use, browser, web search) appears as “Tools & computer usage,” so you can tell them apart.

What’s the automatic run AI usage limit?

Separate from your SU balance, each employee has an automatic run AI usage limit (last 24 hours): the cap on AI usage (SU) that work it does on its own, without you asking directly (automatic runs) can spend in any 24-hour window. This covers scheduled runs, self check-ins, handling an automatic notification from an outside service, or replying automatically to an AI employee’s mention.

• This is different from SU. SU are your overall usage limit: hit zero, and the employee stops completely. The automatic run AI usage limit only paces the work an employee does on its own.
• Once an employee reaches the limit, no new automatic run starts (scheduled runs, self check-ins, and so on); runs already in progress finish. Runs start again as earlier usage drops out of the 24-hour window, with no action needed from you. A scheduled run that was skipped does not run again later.
• Messages you send directly are still handled, but child runs started while handling them can be held by the limit. While automatic runs are paused, you can still chat with the employee anytime and it answers your message.
• While automatic runs are paused, you’ll get a notification, and you’ll see an “Automatic runs paused” badge at the top of the employee screen and in the workspace list on the side.
• The limit is tracked separately for each employee. If you run several employees, one employee’s automatic runs pausing doesn’t affect the others.
• By default this is 500 SU per account. You can lower it yourself under Settings → SU balance & usage → Overview, and you can also set a different value for a single employee from that employee’s own settings page. What you can’t do on your own is raise it (or turn it off) past the platform default; if you need more room, contact the UpServe team.

Checking your balance

On the web (upserve.app), the SU icon at the top of the screen shows your exact SU number at all times; only its color changes as your balance runs down (see “Advanced” below for the exact color thresholds).

Once your balance hits zero and your employees can no longer start new work, a dialog appears over the chat screen. On web and iOS, it includes a View plans button that takes you to the subscription screen, plus a note about switching to a managed service if that’s available to you. The Android app can’t process payments in-app, so on Android the dialog shows the same message without that button, so subscribe on the web instead (see “Subscriptions” below). Closing the dialog doesn’t change anything: new work still can’t start while your balance is at zero.

If you use both personal employees and organization employees, hovering over the SU number shows a note that organization employees are excluded from the tally, so the number you see reflects only your personal usage.

Your exact balance and full history live under Settings → SU balance & usage.

1. Click your profile icon at the top right.
2. Go to Settings → SU balance & usage (or open /settings/su directly).
3. You’ll see two tabs:
   • Overview: current balance and this month’s usage at a glance.
   • History: every SU event (grants, usage, refunds, expirations).

On mobile (iOS and Android), there is no SU badge in the top header. Checking your balance and topping up both live in one place: Settings → SU balance & usage. If you belong to more than one organization, there’s no switching involved: each organization’s usage is listed side by side, as its own section, on that same screen.

The history tab shows which employee ran on which AI performance tier and how much it spent, line by line. It’s the fastest way to find an employee that’s burning more than expected.

Subscriptions

Where you can pay: There are two checkout paths: the web (upserve.app) and the iOS app (Apple in-app purchase). The Android app has no checkout entry point, so Android users subscribe on the web, and the result is reflected in the app right away. Whether cancellation is needed at all (and if so, how) differs per path, so manage your subscription through whichever channel you originally used.

Paying on the web: Web checkout runs through the payment processor PortOne, which routes your charge based on the region you pick on the checkout screen: domestic (KRW) payments go through KG Inicis, and international (USD) payments go through PayPal. The price shown on screen is the exact amount you’ll be charged.

Enter the name on card and phone number: The first time you register a domestic card, the checkout screen asks for two fields separate from your account nickname: “Name on card” and a phone number. The phone number is required just to open the domestic checkout window, so if a payment keeps failing, check that field is filled in first. The name field is meant to hold the name exactly as printed on the card (for a corporate card, the company name on file). Cardholder verification itself happens separately at checkout, so this name doesn’t affect whether the charge is approved, but it’s used as a reference for card-issuer inquiries and refunds, so it’s worth entering accurately. You only need to enter either one once; both are saved for future charges, and you can update them anytime under Settings → Subscription.

SU top-ups were discontinued in August 2026. There is no longer a product for buying SU on their own. SU are granted through a plan subscription only. If you need more, move up to a higher plan. SU you already purchased remain usable until their original expiry (one year from the purchase date).

Free plan weekly SU: Free plan users receive 25 SU automatically each week. Unused SU expire 7 days after they were granted.

Welcome boost: As you go through Getting started, you earn up to 300 SU in stages: 50 on signup → 100 for creating your first employee → 100 when your first task runs → 50 for completing Getting started. Each grant is valid for 7 days and each stage is offered once per account.

Subscription: receive a fixed amount of SU each billing cycle.

• Compare and switch plans under Settings → Subscription (/settings/subscription).
• SU included per plan: Starter: 400 SU/month, Standard: 1,200 SU/month, Pro: 3,000 SU/month.
• Your full period’s SU are granted at once at the time you pay, and stay valid until that billing period ends.
• A web subscription renews automatically every month. You register a card once when you first subscribe, and auto-renewal is already on from that moment. From the next month it’s charged to that same card without you having to press a checkout button each time. Your card details are held by the payment processor; UpServe never stores them.

Changing or cancelling your plan: On the web, tapping a plan card on the subscription screen leads to two very different outcomes depending on direction.

• Moving up to a higher plan (upgrading) takes effect immediately. A confirmation screen first shows this cycle’s remaining credit and the exact amount you’ll be charged today; tap Pay and upgrade and your card is charged on the spot, switching you to the higher plan right away. You’re only charged the difference: this cycle’s unused portion of what you already paid is subtracted first, and that credit is based on the amount you actually paid, not the list price, so a discount coupon never leaves you overcharged against list price. Once the upgrade goes through, your next billing date also restarts from today.
• Moving down to a lower plan (downgrading), or cancelling altogether, doesn’t charge or change anything right away. You’ll see one more confirmation screen (Schedule change for a downgrade, Cancel Subscription for cancellation), and even after confirming, the switch to the new plan (or to Free) only happens when your current billing period ends. Until then you keep your current plan’s features and SU.
• A scheduled change can be undone any time before it takes effect. If you scheduled a downgrade, a banner appears at the top of the subscription screen with an Undo change link; if you scheduled a cancellation, use Resume instead. Either way you simply continue on your current plan.
• These confirmation screens are web-only (upserve.app). The iOS and Android apps don’t have them at all. To change or cancel a subscription you paid for on mobile, use the App Store’s or Play Store’s own subscription management screen instead (see below).
• A plan provided under a contract, or set manually by the UpServe team, can’t be changed or cancelled from this screen on your own. Trying to change or cancel it shows a message pointing you to your account contact instead. This applies to contracted (e.g. enterprise) organizations and to plans the UpServe team assigned by hand.
• If you subscribed through the iOS app (Apple), change or cancel it from Apple’s subscription settings. A web subscription is managed from the subscription screen on the web.
• If you paid on the web, the two mobile apps handle it differently: the iOS app shows a notice that your subscription is managed on the web, pointing you to the web subscription screen instead. The Android app skips that notice and gives you cancel and resume buttons right on the same screen, with no need to open the web.

For per-plan SU amounts and feature comparisons, the Subscription page is always the most accurate source.

The Free plan includes 200MB for its managed database. This limit applies to that database only and is separate from chat attachments and file storage.

If you are on a managed service (flat-rate) contract

Organizations on a separately negotiated monthly flat rate do not run on SU. Instead of a balance that shrinks with usage, the unit of management is the list of duties agreed in the contract.

• You will not see the SU balance icon in the header. There is no balance to show. Employees that belong to this organization keep running even if your personal SU balance is zero, because the flat-rate contract absorbs the cost instead.
• Instead, the Settings → SU balance & usage menu item is relabeled “Organization usage”, showing how much the organization’s employees ran this month and how the trend is moving. Everyone in the organization can see this screen (on mobile, the same Settings entry is relabeled the same way and leads to the same screen).
• Neither the “SU Usage Trend” chart under Settings → SU balance & usage nor the “Organization usage” screen shows absolute SU numbers or dollar costs. Instead you see a change badge showing whether recent usage is trending up or down, and a share breakdown showing how usage splits across employees. This protects the actual operating cost behind the flat rate from being exposed to people in the organization. Regular (metered) organizations that pay per use still see the same screens with exact SU numbers, as before.
• The list of contracted duties and detailed billing lives separately under Settings → Contracted work (/settings/duties). That screen lists the contracted duties and how many times each one was carried out this month and last month, alongside what was billed for that month.
• In the month you paid a one-time setup fee, that amount is included in the billed total, with an “includes one-time setup fee of ○○” note right below it. From the next month on, only the monthly subscription is shown.
• A duty whose run count reads “not linked yet” has no runs attributed to it yet. That is not the same as “0 runs”: zero means the work genuinely never ran, while “not linked yet” means the runs are not being counted against that duty.
• The Contracted work screen is visible only to the organization owner: the party to the contract. People you invite with the Member role do not see it (the “Organization usage” screen described above is different; everyone in the organization can see it).
• To add or change duties, talk to your account contact. You cannot add them from the screen. If requests outside the contracted scope keep coming up, your AI manager may notice first and ask whether you would like that work added as a standing duty. Pricing is still handled separately by a person.
• Work the employee does entirely on its own (scheduled runs, self check-ins) can also be capped by the organization automatic run AI usage limit (last 24 hours). Everyone in the organization can view this under Settings → Enterprise, but you can’t change it yourself. To change it, contact the UpServe team.

SU notifications

UpServe sends the following notifications related to SU. You can toggle them under Settings → Notifications (/settings/notifications).

When	Notification
Monthly usage exceeds your monthly budget	Budget exceeded (sent at most once a month)
New SU are granted (subscription renewal, free weekly grant, UpServe team grant)	SU granted
The UpServe team manually deducts SU from your account	SU deducted
Some of your SU expire	SU expired
Your balance is running low (few SU left)	SU running low

The SU running low notification arrives while you’re using SU after your balance has fallen below a certain level. It doesn’t repeat during the same low stretch, and you can receive it again after you top up. If your balance is already zero, this notification is not sent.

The monthly budget is something you set on Settings → SU balance & usage → Overview. The default is 500 SU. It’s a soft line: when you cross it, you get one notification. It does not stop your employees from running.

If a payment fails, you’ll get an email in addition to the in-app notification. The first email you receive right after signing up (the welcome email) now arrives much faster than before, and the plan-limit numbers quoted in our emails have been corrected to match the current values.

If a bug report you filed leads to compensation, you’ll get a notification when the case moves to a new stage and another when a fee is actually waived. Both are contract- and billing-related notices, so they can’t be turned off in your notification settings. A waived fee shows up in your transaction history as “Fee waiver”. It’s not a SU grant, it’s an adjustment applied to your next bill.

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Advanced

You don’t need anything below for normal use. Read on only if you want to fine-tune cost or understand expiration in detail.

Rough cost differences between AI performance tiers

The same job costs different amounts depending on the AI performance tier. Exact pricing changes with each model provider, so the table below is meant only as a relative guide for decision making.

Tier	Profile
Standard	The everyday default. Most employees work here
Ultra 💪	For work that needs deep reasoning and accuracy, at a much higher SU cost

Which AI model backs each tier is decided by UpServe, and we swap in better models as they ship. That is also why your usage screens and transaction history show a tier rather than a model name.

Useful rules of thumb:

• For the same work, Ultra typically spends around 10× more SU than Standard. The exact multiple depends on which models are assigned to each tier at the time.
• Long-running conversations grow the input size each turn, which scales the per-reply cost accordingly.

If you’re cost-sensitive (for example, an employee with a daily scheduled run or bulk summarization), leave it on Standard. Designing a table or changing its structure still runs on Ultra regardless of the setting, as described below. Move an employee to Ultra only when hard judgment is making its results unreliable.

Tier limits by plan (September 2026 pricing update)

• Free: Ultra is available only for the first 7 days after signup. After that, an employee set to Ultra runs on Standard; upgrading to Starter or higher restores Ultra automatically with no settings change.
• Tier for automatic work: work the employee starts on its own (scheduled runs, self check-ins, and so on) follows the employee’s configured tier only on Pro and above. On Free, Starter, and Standard, automatic work runs on Standard; messages you send yourself use the configured tier as usual.
• Table design always runs on Ultra: once an employee starts designing a new table or changing an existing table’s structure (its columns or the column that identifies a record), the rest of that turn runs on Ultra regardless of plan or employee setting. A table’s shape is what every later record builds on, so accuracy comes first. This applies before the Free 7-day limit and the automatic-work rule above, and it uses correspondingly more SU. Reading a table or filling in its values follows the tier rules above.

In early September 2026, the multiplier used to convert real usage cost into SU was raised. As a result, the same task can now consume a larger SU number than it did before. This is only a change to the conversion baseline for the display unit. It doesn’t affect the relative gap between tiers (Ultra still costs roughly 10× more than Standard) or the SU amounts granted per plan.

Billing accuracy also improved. Previously, if an employee’s run was cut off unexpectedly (say, by a network issue), part of the cost it had already incurred could go uncharged. Now, that usage is always accounted for in full, even when a run ends abnormally.

Expiration policy

SU expire differently depending on where they came from.

• Free plan weekly SU: expire 7 days after they were granted. When the next weekly grant arrives, anything left from the previous week is auto-expired.
• Subscription SU: when a new billing cycle starts, leftover SU from the previous cycle expire. In other words, subscription SU do not roll over.
• Previously purchased top-up SU: valid for one year from the purchase date. (Top-ups were discontinued in August 2026; this applies only to balances bought before then.)

Expired SU show up in your history as “Expired.” SU that have already been used are not affected.

When SU are spent, this is the order:

1. Welcome boost group first: the one-time grants you earn at each Getting started milestone. These have the shortest validity of any SU type, so they’re always spent first.
2. Subscription and weekly group next: this includes monthly SU from your subscription plan and weekly SU on the Free plan. Within this group, SU closest to expiration are used first.
3. UpServe team grants and past top-ups last: SU granted by the UpServe team, plus any bought before top-ups were discontinued. Within this group, earliest expiration first; SU with no expiration date are used last.

Because of this, once any boost SU are gone, subscribers will burn through the current month’s subscription SU before this group starts to drop.

Where to check your balance

On the web, your remaining SU are shown as a number in the SU icon at the top of the screen, and update in real time as SU are deducted (mobile apps don’t have this always-on icon; check Settings → SU balance & usage instead, as described in “Checking your balance” above).

The SU icon changes color as your balance runs down, using the thresholds below.

Shown as (SU icon)	SU remaining
Default (gray)	More than 50
Amber	Between 20 and 50
Red with a warning icon	Between 0 and 20
Red, pulsing	Zero or below (depleted)

Tap the icon to open Settings → SU balance & usage for your balance and usage history.

Auto-renewal and auto top-up

• Web subscriptions renew automatically every month, charged to the card you first registered: the payment processor is PortOne, which routes domestic cards through KG Inicis and international cards through PayPal. Registering your card also registers the recurring-billing token used for later automatic charges. The same card is charged on the same day each month; in months without that date (say you started on the 31st and it’s February), the charge lands on the last day of the month and returns to the original date the month after. Your card number itself is held by the payment processor, not by UpServe’s servers.
• You manage the card yourself: Settings → Subscription shows the registered card, and you can replace or remove it there. The last card on an active subscription cannot be removed. Register another card first, or cancel the subscription.
• If a payment fails: we retry over the following days and tell you each time. Your service continues during the retry window, so fixing the card before it closes keeps everything uninterrupted. If it still doesn’t go through, the plan returns to Free.
• iOS app (Apple) subscriptions do auto-renew: per store policy, they renew and charge automatically every month. The new grant lands at the same moment that last cycle’s subscription SU expire immediately.
• Auto top-up (Starter/Standard/Pro): paid plans have no auto top-up. SU top-ups were discontinued as a product in August 2026, so if you run low, move up to a higher plan.
• Auto top-up (Enterprise): enterprise contracts used to get an exception where packs were charged and added automatically once the balance ran out. That no longer exists. Regardless of plan, new work stops when the balance reaches zero. Employees belonging to a managed service (flat-fee) organization are unaffected, since they don’t draw on personal SU in the first place.
• If you cancel a web subscription: billing stops from the next month, and your account returns to Free once the period you already paid for ends. You keep full access to your plan’s features and remaining SU until then.
• If you upgrade: it takes effect immediately, and you’re charged the difference on the spot. Your next billing date also restarts from today, rather than charging just the difference and leaving your old billing date in place, an upgrade starts a fresh billing month right now.
• If you downgrade: nothing is charged or changed right away. The new plan takes effect from your next billing date, and the plan you already paid for this cycle stays in effect until the period ends.
• If an iOS app payment fails: the App Store retries automatically on its own schedule. If all retries fail, you’ll see a prompt to update your payment method. Without an update, the plan drops to Free at the end of the current period. iOS subscriptions are also cancelled from Apple’s subscription settings.

How is the upgrade charge calculated?

When you request an upgrade, the amount shown on screen is worked out like this:

The charge is the new plan price minus the unused portion of your current plan.

• “What you haven’t used yet” is whichever is larger: your remaining-time share or your remaining-SU share. If you’re early in the billing cycle, the time share wins; if you’ve barely touched your SU, the SU share wins, whichever works out better for you.
• The credit is based on what you actually paid, not the list price. If you’re on a discounted price from a coupon, the credit is calculated from that lower amount, because using the list price instead would hand back more than you actually paid.
• Once the upgrade is confirmed, any SU left on your old plan is dropped, and the new plan’s full monthly SU is granted fresh. Your leftover SU was already folded into the credit above, so carrying it forward too would effectively grant the same SU twice.
• An upgrade quote can’t be produced if the currency you’d be charged in differs from the currency you originally subscribed in (currently Korean won only). This is very unlikely to come up, but if it does, you’ll see an error instead of a quote.

How the automatic run AI usage limit works

• It covers scheduled runs, self check-ins, runs triggered by an automatic notification from an outside service, automatic replies to an AI employee’s mention, child runs started while handling work (including work handed to another employee and resuming a paused task), reviewing its own recent activity to propose what to do next, and auto memory cleanup (reviewing recent conversations and planning ahead). The run that answers a message you send directly is excluded from this limit, but child runs started while handling that message are covered, so they can be held by the limit.
• If the AI usage (SU) spent on this kind of work over the last 24 hours crosses the limit, no new automatic run starts from that point on. Scheduled runs that come due in the meantime are skipped and do not run again later. Anything already in progress keeps running to completion; it isn’t cut off partway.
• The limit is calculated on a rolling 24-hour window, not a fixed midnight reset. As older usage ages past 24 hours, room opens back up and automatic work resumes on its own.
• The limit is tracked per employee, not combined across your whole account.
• The “limit reached” notification is sent at most once per employee within the same 24-hour window.
• If the limit check itself fails for some reason, the system defaults to letting automatic work continue rather than blocking it.
• The size of the limit may be adjusted over time as the service is tuned; the mechanics (rolling 24 hours, direct messages excluded) stay the same regardless.
• Resolution order is per-employee setting → account default → platform default (500 SU). From the account or per-employee settings screen, the server only rejects a request that would store a value looser than the platform default (larger, or 0 = unlimited). Lowering the value, or re-saving a value that’s already above the default, always goes through.
• Employees that belong to an organization can also have an organization automatic run AI usage limit on top of the personal/employee axis. Flat-rate (UNMETERED) organizations check only the organization limit; the billing contact’s personal setting has no authority to block the organization’s work. Regular (metered) organizations check both axes and stop the moment either one is exceeded.