---
title: "Credits and plans"
description: "How credits pay for answers, what each plan includes, how credit packs work, and where to see your balance and your usage."
canonical: "https://lookio.app/docs/get-started/credits-and-plans"
updated: "2026-11-08"
---

# Credits and plans

## Credits

Credits pay for answers and passage searches. Importing, editing and reading are free, on every channel.

| Action                                               | Credits |
| ---------------------------------------------------- | ------- |
| Answer in Eco                                        | 10      |
| Answer in Flash (default)                            | 30      |
| Answer in Deep                                       | 80      |
| Passage search: the best passages, without an answer | 1       |

The length of the answer and what it finds do not change the price. Lookio holds the price before the answer starts and charges it when the answer is written. If the balance is too low, Lookio refuses the question with `insufficient_credits`. See [Core concepts](/docs/get-started/concepts#what-an-answer-costs).

Credits belong to the workspace. Every member, widget, access and API key spends from the same balance.

![The Billing page: current plan Pro, the credit balance, and two credit grants with their expiry dates](/docs/images/app/billing.webp)

_Billing: the plan, the balance, and each grant of credits with its expiry._

## Plans

| Plan        | Words stored   | Team                                                                     |
| ----------- | -------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Free**    | 125,000        | One seat. All knowledge permissions are on.                              |
| **Starter** | 1,000,000      | Unlimited seats. All knowledge permissions are on.                       |
| **Pro**     | 10,000,000     | Unlimited seats. An admin sets each member's permissions and assistants. |
| **Custom**  | No fixed limit | For larger volumes. Talk to us.                                          |

A new workspace gets 1,000 welcome credits, without a card. The API, the CLI and the MCP server work on every plan. Prices and the credits included each month are on [lookio.app/pricing](https://lookio.app/pricing).

Each plan also limits the words stored and the pages read each month (PDF pages, slides, images and web pages). A 200-page scanned PDF counts against both. See [Word allowance](/docs/guides/resources#word-allowance) and [Pages read each month](/docs/guides/resources#pages-read-each-month).

## Credit packs

To get more credits without a bigger plan, an admin buys a pack on **Billing**. You pay a pack once. It is valid for 12 months and adds to any plan.

Referral credits expire 90 days after Lookio grants them.

## See your balance and your usage

![The Usage page with credits used, answers, a daily bar chart and three tables: by mode, by assistant, who asked](/docs/images/app/usage.webp)

_Usage: credits over 30 days, then by mode, by assistant and by who asked._

**App**

**Billing** shows the plan and the balance. **Usage** charts credits and answers over a period, by mode, by assistant and by who asked.

**API**

[`GET /v1/credits`](/docs/api/credits/get-credits) returns the balance and each grant with its expiry. [`GET /v1/usage`](/docs/api/usage/get-usage) returns credits over a period. Every answer also returns `credit_cost` and `credits_remaining`.

**CLI**

```bash
lookio credits
lookio usage --from 2026-01-01
```

**MCP**

Call `get_credit_balance` or `get_usage`.

## Who can buy

Only workspace admins buy credits, change the plan and manage billing. The **Team** page shows each member's role. An admin changes roles there. See [Members and permissions](/docs/guides/members-and-permissions).

> **Tip: Cap what a channel can spend**
>
> A widget can have a monthly ceiling of credits. An access, and each of its keys, can have a daily and a monthly ceiling. At its ceiling, that channel stops answering. The rest of the workspace keeps working. See [Widget access and limits](/docs/guides/widget/access-and-limits) and [Accesses](/docs/guides/accesses).