How AI Credits Work
Teams and Enterprise accounts don't use the Free/Ultimate lifetime creation caps. Instead, everything AI runs on weekly AI credits. Every AI action — a chat message, a flashcard deck, a podcast, a video lecture — draws from your credits, and they refill every week.
This guide explains exactly how that works.
Your weekly allowance
- Every member gets their own 450 AI credits per week. Credits are per person, not a shared team pool — one teammate's heavy week never eats into anyone else's credits.
- Adding a seat brings another person onto the team with their own 450 credits/week; it doesn't add credits to your personal allowance.
- If you're on a standalone Enterprise account (no team), you get 450 credits per week for yourself.
When credits reset
- Your weekly credits reset at the start of every week — Monday at 00:00 UTC.
- Unused credits do not roll over. Each Monday you start fresh at your full weekly allowance.
You can always see your exact reset time in Settings → Usage.
What things cost
Credit costs are based on the real AI cost of the work, so bigger jobs and more powerful models cost more. As a rough guide:
| Action | Typical cost |
|---|---|
| Chat message | ~1 credit |
| Premium-model chat message | ~2 credits |
| Quick deck edit (Refine with AI) | ~1 credit |
| Flashcard deck | ~4 credits |
| AI Meeting Notes (recording) | ~6 credits |
| Mind map / infographic | ~6 credits |
| Slides / study guide / worksheet | ~8 credits |
| Deep Research report | ~10 credits |
| Podcast | ~12 credits |
| AI Video Lecture | ~25 credits |
These are typical figures — the exact charge is calculated from the specific model and the size of the job, then rounded up.
Premium and top-tier models cost more. Choosing a best-quality or frontier model roughly doubles the credit cost of that action compared with the standard model. If you want to stretch your weekly credits further, sticking to the recommended (standard) models is the most efficient choice. Admins can control which model tiers are available to the team — see Managing Your Team.
Going over your limit
Scholarly is built so a limit never leaves you with a half-finished result:
- Before a task runs, we check that you have enough credits to cover its estimated cost. If you do, the task starts.
- Once a task starts, it always finishes. We never cut a generation off partway to save credits.
- If the real cost comes in higher than the estimate, we still complete the job and deduct the true amount — even if that takes you to zero. In other words, a single generation is allowed to push you over your remaining balance so your work can finish.
You're only ever stopped at the start of a new task, once you're out of credits — never in the middle of one. When that happens, you wait for the weekly reset on Monday.
Where to see your balance
Open Settings → Usage to see your Weekly credits at a glance:
- Remaining — credits you have left right now.
- In progress — credits reserved for tasks that are currently running.
- Included weekly — your weekly allowance.
- Usage details — a breakdown of exactly what you spent credits on this week, by feature and model.
- Reset time — when your credits refill.
Team owners and admins also see a Usage by member breakdown, and can reach usage from the Team page → Billing & usage → View usage.
Related
- Teams and Enterprise — the overview of plans, seats, and roles.
- Managing Your Team — seats, members, and model access.