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Control what you spend ​

Pencel pays for AI work with credits. This page explains what uses them, where to see your spending, and how to set limits so nothing surprises you.

What credits are ​

One credit is $0.10 of AI usage, so 10 credits = $1. Credits pay for the work Pencel does with an AI model: reading, sorting, scoring, drafting and answering your messages.

  • What uses credits: messages you send in rooms and on Home, scheduled work that finds something to do, drafting documents, and building or testing workflows.
  • What doesn't: a room's background check that finds nothing new uses no credits.

How many you get ​

PlanCredits
FreeFree starter credits worth $5 when you verify your email and allow anonymous usage data. They expire after 30 days. After that, use your own API key.
Solo ($20/month or $200/year)80 credits a month, about ten agent runs
Pro ($99/month or $990/year)450 credits a month, about a hundred agent runs

Plan credits reset every month. On a paid plan you can buy more at any time: Top Up adds 40 credits for $19. See Accounts, plans and credits.

If you use your own API key, requests go straight to that AI provider, and the provider bills you for them directly.

See what you're spending ​

Go to Settings ▸ Cost & Usage. You'll see:

  • Monthly Budget: your app-wide limit, if you set one (see below).
  • Totals for Today, This Week, This Month and All Time, in credits.
  • Daily Spend: a chart of the last 30 days.
  • By Task: which kinds of work used the most credits in the last 30 days.
  • Recent Workflow Runs and Recent Chats, with what each cost.

For your balance, go to Settings ▸ Plan & Billing. On a paid plan, Credit Balance shows the credits you have left and when any of them expire. Top Up Credits is underneath.

To see what a single run cost, open Studio ▸ Jobs. The All runs table has a Cost column, and each run log ends with its total in credits.

Set an app-wide monthly limit ​

  1. Go to Settings ▸ Cost & Usage.
  2. Under Monthly Budget, click Set limit.
  3. Enter an amount in dollars (for example, $20 covers 200 credits of usage) and click Save.

The card then shows how much you've spent and a badge: Within budget, 80% used or Limit reached. When you reach the limit, Pencel stops doing AI work until the next month starts or you raise the limit. Use Edit limit to change it, or Remove spending limit to go back to no limit.

Give a room its own budget ​

A busy room can have its own monthly limit, so one room can't use up everything.

  1. Open the room and click its name to open its settings.
  2. Go to Advanced ▸ Monthly budget.
  3. Enter a number of credits. Leave it blank for No limit (the app-wide limit still applies).

Under the field, the room shows what it has spent this month, how much is reserved (set aside for work in progress) and how much is left. When less than 20% is left, you'll see a warning.

When a room runs out, its scheduled work pauses. It doesn't fail. A banner above the room's message box explains why, with an Open Advanced button. The room picks up again on its own when the month resets or when you raise its limit.

Cap what one agent can spend on a single run ​

  1. Go to Studio ▸ Agents and open the agent.
  2. Open the Knowledge & Guardrails tab.
  3. Under Guardrails, enter a dollar amount in Max Cost per Run. Leave it empty to use the standard limit.
  4. Click Save.

If a run reaches the cap, the agent stops. The run is marked as finished with problems (Warnings in Jobs) so a half-finished result never looks complete.

Tips to spend less ​

  • Pick sensible check intervals. An inbox room checking every 30 minutes is plenty for most people. Something that changes slowly can check daily. See Run work on a schedule.
  • Turn off routines you don't read. Switch them off in the room's Schedule ▸ Routines, or pause them in Studio.
  • Use a lighter model for simple work. Sorting, tagging and short summaries don't need the most capable model. A lighter model such as Gemini 3.8 Flash costs much less. Set it as an agent's Preferred Model, pick it in the message box, or change Settings ▸ General ▸ Default Model. See Supported models.
  • Keep "always on" knowledge short. Knowledge documents set to Always go into every piece of work. Set reference material to Smart so it's only used when it's relevant. See Knowledge.
  • Check new routines early. Look at the cost of the first few runs of a new workflow in Studio ▸ Jobs. Real numbers beat guesses.
  • Use your own API key if you'd rather pay the AI provider directly.