Credits & Billing

UpServe uses a single unit — credits — for everything you pay for. AI model responses, browser and computer automation, image generation, and other actions all draw from your credit balance, which you can monitor inside the app.

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

What is a credit?

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

• All usage — model responses, tool runs — is computed internally and converted to credits before being deducted.
• Credits are spent in two priority groups: subscription and weekly credits are spent first, then top-up and admin-granted credits. Within each group, credits closest to expiration are used first; credits with no expiration date are always last.
• When your balance reaches zero, your agents can’t start new work. You can either top up or upgrade your subscription to keep going.

What spends credits?

Two kinds of activity consume credits.

1. AI model responses

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

• The same question can cost very different amounts depending on whether the agent uses a cheap or a premium model.
• Longer conversations carry more context with each reply, so each response costs a bit more as a thread grows.

2. Tool execution infrastructure

When an agent doesn’t just “talk” but actually acts, it runs tools. Some tools use external resources, which are billed separately on top of the model call.

• Computer use / browser automation: runs inside a dedicated virtual machine. 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 “Usage,” while spend that uses external infrastructure — computer use, browser, web search — appears as “Infra,” so you can tell them apart.

What’s the automatic work budget?

Separate from your credit balance, each agent has a daily automatic work budget that covers work it does on its own, without you asking directly — running a schedule, checking in periodically, handling an automatic notification from an outside service, or replying automatically to a teammate agent’s mention.

• This is different from credits. Credits are your overall usage limit — hit zero, and the agent stops completely. The automatic work budget only paces the work an agent does on its own.
• Once an agent uses up today’s automatic work budget, its scheduled runs and background check-ins pause for the rest of the day. They pick back up automatically within 24 hours — no action needed from you.
• Messages you send directly are never affected. While automatic work is resting, you can still chat with the agent anytime and it responds normally.
• While automatic work is resting, you’ll get a notification, and you’ll see a “Background work resting” badge at the top of the agent screen and in the workspace list on the side.
• The budget is tracked separately for each agent. If you run several agents, one resting doesn’t affect the others.

Checking your balance

Your balance and history live under Settings → Credits.

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

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

Top-ups and subscriptions

Top-up — buy extra credits in a single one-off purchase.

• Use the Top Up button on the Overview tab of Settings → Credits.
• Top-ups are available only to Starter and Pro subscribers. On the Free plan, you’ll need to upgrade first.
• Minimum purchase is 5 credits ($25), at $5 per credit.
• Top-ups are processed via web checkout only. You cannot top up through in-app purchase.
• Credits purchased via top-up stay valid for one year from the purchase date.

Free plan weekly credits — Free plan users receive 1 credit automatically each week. Unused credits expire 7 days after they were granted.

Welcome boost — When you sign up, you receive a one-time grant of 10 credits. They are valid for 14 days and are offered once per account.

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 and top up on the web — the result is reflected in the app right away. Cancellation and payment-method updates differ per path, so manage your subscription through whichever channel you originally used.

Subscription — receive a fixed amount of credits each billing cycle, automatically.

• Compare and switch plans under Settings → Subscription (/settings/subscription).
• Paid plans are billed monthly and renew automatically on each billing date.
• Credits included per plan: Starter — 12 credits/month, Pro — 30 credits/month.
• Setup boost — The first time you subscribe to a paid plan (Starter or Pro), you receive a one-time grant of 15 credits. They are valid for 30 days and are offered once per account.
• When you upgrade, new credits are granted immediately and renew on each billing date.
• When you downgrade or cancel, the change takes effect at the end of your current billing period. You keep full access until then.
• If you subscribed through the iOS app (Apple), cancellation must be done in Apple’s subscription settings — the cancel button in the web app will be unavailable. Subscriptions purchased on the web are cancelled on the web.

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

Credit notifications

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

The monthly budget is something you set on Settings → Credits → Overview. The default is 5 credits. It’s a soft line — when you cross it, you get one notification. It does not stop your agents from running.

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 models

UpServe charges different rates per model. Exact pricing changes with each model provider, so the table below is meant only as a relative guide for decision making.

Useful rules of thumb:

• For the same work, Premium typically spends 10–30× more credits than Cheap.
• Standard usually spends 2–5× more than Cheap.
• Long-running conversations grow the input size each turn, which scales the per-reply cost accordingly.

If you’re cost-sensitive — for example, an agent on a daily schedule or bulk summarization — prefer Cheap or Standard tiers.

Expiration policy

Credits expire differently depending on where they came from.

• Free plan weekly credits: expire 7 days after they were granted. When the next weekly grant arrives, anything left from the previous week is auto-expired.
• Subscription credits: when a new billing cycle starts, leftover credits from the previous cycle expire. In other words, subscription credits do not roll over.
• Top-up credits: valid for one year from the purchase date.

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

When credits are spent, this is the order:

1. Subscription and weekly group first — this includes monthly credits from your subscription plan and weekly credits on the Free plan. Within this group, credits closest to expiration are used first.
2. Top-up and admin-granted group next — credits you purchased or that were granted by an admin. Within this group, earliest expiration first; credits with no expiration date are used last.

Because of this, subscribers will burn through the current month’s subscription credits before any purchased top-ups start to drop.

Auto-renewal and auto top-up

• Subscription auto-renewal: active subscriptions renew automatically on each billing date. The new grant lands at the same moment that last cycle’s subscription credits expire immediately.
• Auto top-up: UpServe does not currently offer automatic top-ups when your balance falls below a threshold. Top-ups happen only when you press the Top Up button.
• Payment failures: if a renewal payment fails, your payment provider (LemonSqueezy, Apple, or Google) automatically retries 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.
• Cancellation: cancelling a subscription leaves your plan and remaining credits active until the end of the current billing period. After that, the account drops to Free automatically.

How the automatic work budget works

• It covers scheduled runs, periodic check-ins (heartbeat), webhook-triggered runs, automatic replies to a teammate agent’s mention, and resuming queued follow-up work. Anything that starts from a message you send directly is fully excluded from this limit.
• If the credits spent on this kind of work over the last 24 hours cross the daily limit, new automatic runs are held back from that point on. 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 budget is tracked per agent, not combined across your whole account.
• The “budget exceeded” notification is sent at most once per agent within the same 24-hour window.
• If the budget check itself fails for some reason, the system defaults to letting automatic work continue rather than blocking it.
• The size of the daily budget may be adjusted over time as the service is tuned; the mechanics (rolling 24 hours, direct messages excluded) stay the same regardless.