Skip to main content
Brainstormer uses a credit-based billing system that converts all platform usage into a single, transparent unit. Every AI call, embedding generation, vector operation, and file storage action is tracked and charged in credits.

​
How Credits Work

​
Credit Value

By default, 1 credit = $0.50 USD. This value is configurable by platform administrators.

​
Margin Multiplier

The platform applies a margin multiplier (default: 2x) to the raw provider cost before converting to credits. This covers platform overhead and infrastructure.

​
Credit Calculation

For every billable operation:
  1. Raw cost — The actual cost from the AI provider (e.g., $0.01 for a chat completion)
  2. Charged cost — Raw cost multiplied by the margin (e.g., 0.01x2.0=0.01 x 2.0 = 0.02)
  3. Credits burned — Charged cost divided by credit value (e.g., 0.02/0.02 / 0.50 = 0.04 credits)
The margin multiplier and credit value are platform-wide settings configured by superadmins. All organizations use the same rates.

​
What Consumes Credits

Credits are consumed by various operations across the platform:
Fixed-mode prompts (welcome messages, system prompts) do not consume credits because they do not call an AI model. Only generated-mode prompts that trigger an LLM call are billed.
Credits and billing overview page

The credits and billing page showing your organization's credit balance

​
Credit Wallet

Each organization has a credit wallet that tracks:
  • Current balance — How many credits are available
  • Total credits purchased — Lifetime credits added to the wallet
  • Total credits used — Lifetime credits consumed
The wallet is debited atomically with every billable operation — the credit deduction happens in the same database transaction as the cost event recording, ensuring accurate tracking.

​
Tracking Usage

​
Usage Dashboard

Navigate to Billing in the sidebar to see your organization’s usage:
Analytics dashboard with usage charts

The analytics dashboard showing usage trends and breakdowns

  • Credit balance with progress bar showing usage against your plan allocation
  • Usage breakdown by operation type (chat, embeddings, vector ops, storage)
  • Daily usage trend — See how your usage patterns over time
  • Per-agent breakdown — Which agents consume the most credits

​
Per-Conversation Cost

Each conversation tracks token usage and cost:
  • Input tokens and output tokens per message
  • Cost per message based on the model’s pricing
  • Total conversation cost
You can see this in the conversation details view.

​
Credit Ledger

Every credit transaction is recorded in an immutable credit ledger. Each entry includes:
  • Transaction type — Debit (usage) or credit (purchase, refund)
  • Amount — Credits consumed or added
  • Balance before and after — Running balance at the time of transaction
  • Reference — Link to the specific operation (chat message, embedding batch, etc.)
  • Timestamp — When the transaction occurred
The ledger is append-only — entries are never modified or deleted, providing a complete audit trail.
If you notice unexpected credit consumption, check the credit ledger for detailed transaction history. Each entry links back to the specific operation that triggered the charge.

​
Cost Optimization Tips

Model pricing varies dramatically. GPT-3.5 Turbo or Gemini Flash can be 10-50x cheaper than GPT-4 Turbo for simple use cases. Match your model to the complexity of the task.
Fixed welcome messages and static system prompts do not call the AI model and cost nothing. Only use generated mode when you genuinely need dynamic, context-aware content.
Well-organized, relevant content reduces the number of search queries needed and improves hit rates. Remove outdated or duplicate content that wastes embedding and storage credits.
Some agents may consume far more credits than others. Use the per-agent breakdown to identify high-cost agents and optimize their model selection or prompt length.

​
Superadmin Billing Dashboard

Platform superadmins have access to an additional billing dashboard at Admin > Billing that shows:
  • Raw cost vs. charged revenue — Platform margin visibility
  • Provider breakdown — Costs by provider (OpenRouter, Pinecone, S3, etc.)
  • Daily trend — Revenue and cost over time
  • Top organizations — Which orgs consume the most
  • Plan mix — Distribution of organizations across plans
This dashboard is only visible to users with the superadmin platform role.