Credits

In short

• Know what something costs before you press, every time
• Credits are what a generation costs, priced by the model, the size and the duration you asked for (What a credit buys)
• Writing a prompt costs credits too, at a flat rate, separately from generating with it (Two things are metered)
• Starting a job holds credits rather than charging them. You are charged what the job actually used (Reserve, then settle)
• A failed or canceled job gives its hold straight back. Nothing was charged, so there is nothing to refund
• Your balance is plan credits plus any packs you have bought. Plan credits go first, and pack credits never expire (Buying credits)

What a credit buys

Every model has a price, and the price moves with what you ask for: resolution, duration, how many images, the references you attach. The cost is worked out before anything is submitted, and if the combination you have asked for cannot be priced, the request is refused rather than run at a guess.

Reserve, then settle

When a job starts, credits are reserved. They leave the available balance and are held. Nothing is written to the ledger at this point, because nothing has been spent yet.

Which balance? The answer follows the project, not the person. A generation on a personal project reserves from your own balance. A generation on a team project reserves from the team’s balance, always, for every member and for the owner too, with no fallback to anyone’s personal credits. See How do Teams work? and Buying credits.

When the job finishes, you are charged: one ledger row, already net of anything the job held but did not use.

If the job fails or you cancel it, the reservation comes back. No charge was ever written, so this is the release of money you never spent.

A refusal is not a charge either. When a model declines what you sent (a reference it will not accept, a prompt over its limit), the reservation is released the same way. And when Lorvara can see the request will be refused before it is sent, it stops before reserving anything at all.

Two things are metered, not one

Generating a picture or a video is the obvious cost. The other is writing the prompt, which is model work too:

What	Rate
Composing a prompt: Confirm & compose, Save & re-compose, a card’s Recompose Prompt, Compose N prompts	15 credits per prompt composed
A Prompt Agent turn: each send in the agent panel	8 credits
Generating	The model’s own price, which depends on the model, size and duration

The first two are flat and the same on every model; only generation moves with what you asked for. Every control that spends them says the price before the press. Only the rows that actually need composing are composed and charged. See Recomposing, and what it costs.

Why your returns are not subtracted from your spend

This is the part worth understanding, because the arithmetic looks wrong until you know the shape of the ledger.

Returns are not the inverse of charges. They are reservations coming back. Subtracting them would understate what you spent. A month with one failed 300-credit job and one successful 100-credit job would read as −200, which is nonsense.

So spend is the sum of charges, and returns are reported alongside. The lifetime counter on your membership page is built the same way, which is why it agrees with every other view rather than drifting from them.

Seeing where they went

Three views, all reading one ledger: your personal spend, a team’s spend grouped by member, and your account’s lifetime outlay across both. See Reviewing usage.

What to read next

• Buying credits — packs, which credits are spent first, buying to a team, and auto top-up.
• Recomposing, and what it costs — what a composed row buys.
• How do Models work? — choosing the model, which is what sets the price.
• How we’re tracking models — how prices and capabilities are kept current.