AI credits

How AI usage is metered, what your monthly bucket covers, and how top-ups work.

Every AI action in Dokly — inline edits, page generation, site generation — costs credits. Each plan includes a monthly credit bucket. If you run out, you can top up.

How credits work#

  • Credits are denominated in roughly "small-AI-action" units.
  • Each plan includes a fixed monthly bucket that resets on your billing date.
  • Unused credits don't roll over.
  • When you run an action, credits are reserved upfront and refunded if the action fails.

Monthly buckets#

PlanMonthly creditsApproximate usage
Free50A handful of inline edits per month
Starter500~10 generated pages or 200 inline edits
Pro2,500~50 generated pages or 1,000 inline edits
Scale10,000A small docs team's worth of generation
EnterpriseCustom or BYOKSee below

These are working numbers — actual cost varies by input/output length.

Action costs#

Approximate cost per action:

ActionCredits
Inline edit (improve, expand, fix grammar, etc.)1–3
Continue writing2–5
Translate a paragraph3–8
Generate single page20–50
Generate site (10 pages)200–500
Generate site (30 pages)600–1,500

The editor shows the cost preview before you confirm any large action.

Where to see your usage#

Settings → Account → AI usage shows:

  • Current month's bucket and remaining
  • Daily usage chart for the past 30 days
  • Recent actions (per-action cost log)

Screenshot needed

screenshot of the AI usage panel showing the bucket meter, daily chart, and recent actions log

Topping up#

If you exhaust your monthly bucket, the editor shows a "Top up" prompt instead of running the action. Top-ups are linear — pay for what you need, no minimums.

Approximate top-up pricing:

Top-upPrice
500 credits$5
2,500 credits$20
10,000 credits$70

Top-ups are added to your current bucket and don't expire until the next billing reset.

Why we meter AI separately#

Two reasons:

  1. AI is expensive. A power user generating 100 pages a month would otherwise drag down everyone else's plan price. Metering lets light users pay light prices.
  2. It's transparent. You see what AI costs, not what we wrap and resell. If you want to compare to running raw API calls, you can.

BYOK (Bring Your Own Key)#

On the Enterprise plan, you can connect your own Anthropic API key. AI actions then bill against your Anthropic account directly, and your Dokly bill drops the AI metering line item.

BYOK is enterprise-only because:

  • It needs key management infrastructure (encryption, rotation, scoping).
  • Most users don't have an Anthropic account or want to manage one.
  • For smaller usage, our pooled allocation is cheaper than a direct AnthropicAPI bill.

If you're a Free / Starter / Pro customer with high AI usage, the right move is usually a top-up or moving to Scale, not BYOK.

Refunds and failures#

If an AI action fails (network error, model timeout, validation error), the credits are refunded automatically. You can verify in the recent actions log — failed actions show with a strikethrough and "refunded" tag.

If you ever see a charge for an action that didn't run, file an issue and we'll refund manually.

Where next#