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What an AI credit is, and why we count them
One Folevi AI credit is one cent of what the AI costs to run. How a request becomes credits, what common actions cost, and how packs and fair use work.
Folevi measures AI use in credits. One credit is one cent ($0.01) of what the AI model costs Folevi to run. That is the whole definition. This post explains how it works out in practice.
How a request becomes credits
Folevi’s AI runs on Google Gemini, which charges by the token. A token is a short piece of a word, and Google charges for the tokens sent to the model and the tokens it writes back. After each request, Folevi reads the token counts Google reports, prices them at Google’s rates and rounds up to whole cents. A request that costs a third of a cent uses 1 credit. One that costs 2.1 cents uses 3.
Every request uses at least 1 credit. Short jobs, such as suggesting a title, fixing spelling or rewriting up to about 1,500 characters, go to a smaller, cheaper Gemini model, so they usually cost 1.
What things cost
| Action | Credits, roughly |
|---|---|
| Rewrite or shorten a paragraph | 1 |
| Fix spelling and grammar | 1 |
| A question to Foli | 2 to 4 |
| Catch me up (a brief of your week) | 2 |
| Draw or update a flowchart | 3 to 5 |
Longer inputs cost more, because the model reads more. A question that draws on several long notes costs more than a question about one short note.
How many credits each plan has
- Free: 25 credits a month, reset on the first of each month (UTC).
- Core: none. Core has no AI.
- Pro: 180 credits a month, for $4.99 a month.
- Pro AI: 550 credits a month, sold as unlimited AI with fair use, for $12.99 a month.
- The 7-day trial for new accounts: 100 credits for the whole trial.
Paid plans reset each month of the billing period, including yearly plans, and monthly credits don’t carry over. In terms of work, 180 credits is about 180 paragraph rewrites, or about 60 questions to Foli at 3 credits each. Settings → Plan & billing shows how many credits you have left and the day they reset.
In a paid workspace, each member has the plan’s credits there. In a free workspace, and on pages shared with you as a guest, you use your own personal credits.
Credit packs
On Pro and Pro AI you can buy a pack: 500 credits for $7.99 or 1,000 for $14.99. Packs last 12 months from the day you buy them and are used after your monthly credits, the pack that expires soonest first. A pack belongs to the person who bought it, in the place they bought it for: their Personal, or their seat in one workspace. Packs aren’t shared across a team.
What fair use means on Pro AI
The fair-use line on Pro AI is 550 credits a month, about 18 a day. Every plan with AI also has an hourly cap on the number of requests, which is there to stop scripts and abuse. For a person writing, the monthly credits are the limit you would meet first, and a pack tops them up.
What happens when you run out
Before each request, Folevi sets aside a cautious estimate of what it could cost. If you don’t have enough credits left, the request is turned down before anything is sent, and a refused request costs nothing. The message tells you when your credits reset. On Pro and Pro AI it offers a pack, and on Free it offers an upgrade.
When a request finishes, Folevi charges what it really cost and releases the rest of the estimate. If the real cost turns out to be more than you had left, your balance goes to zero and the difference is never charged later. If a reply fails after Gemini has already answered, it is still charged, because Google charged us for it.
Why we count at all
Counting in real cost means no plan can cost more in AI than it earns, so the prices on the pricing page can stay where they are. It also means you can see what you use, in a unit that means something.
It is also what makes Core possible: a plan with no credits is a plan with no AI. Why Folevi has a plan with no AI explains that one. For what the AI can do, see AI notes and the Foli docs.