How credits, allocations, and billing plans work

Billing & Credits

Vindex Ai Gateway operates on a clear, credit-based system to count and control your AI chatbot usage. This page explains how credits work, how to set spending limits, and what happens when credits run out.

How Credits Work

1 credit = 1,000 words or tokens of chatbot conversation (including both what you send and what the AI replies). Larger, more advanced AI models consume credits at slightly higher rates.

Your business account has three credit categories:

Main balance: Your primary credit balance. Shared across all your website chatbots.
Assistant reserve: Credits reserved exclusively for the portal assistant that helps you in your dashboard. Chatbots on your website cannot touch this reserve.
Expiry credits: Bonus credits received from special bundle purchases that expire at a specific date. These are always spent first.

Database Columns (Developer Reference)

Main balance:
text
```
credits_balance
```
Assistant reserve:
text
```
assistant_reserve
```
Expiry credits:
text
```
expiry_credits_balance
```

Requests consume expiry credits first, then deduct from the active balance pool.

Spending Caps (Channel Allocation)

To prevent a single website chatbot from accidentally consuming all your business credits (for example, due to a sudden spike in traffic or spam bots), you can set a spending cap (allocation limit) for each channel.

Allocation Visual Flow


text
Your Total Balance: 1,000 credits
├── Portal Assistant: 500 (reserved for portal only)
└── Available Chatbot Pool: 500 (available for websites)
    ├── Support Bot A: cap = 200, consumed = 150  ✓ Online
    ├── Sales Bot B:   cap = 300, consumed = 300  ✗ Off (cap reached)
    └── Unallocated:   0

Spending Cap: The maximum credits a chatbot is allowed to consume.
Credits Consumed: The total credits used by that chatbot so far.
When a chatbot hits its spending cap, it turns off automatically and displays a friendly notice so you can increase its limit.
Caps are ceilings, not reservations — if Support Bot A has a cap of 200 but only uses 150, the remaining 50 credits are not locked and can be used by other active bots.

Setting Spending Caps

Go to the Credits page in your dashboard.
Adjust the Assistant Reserve if you want more or fewer credits reserved for your dashboard helper.
Enter the spending cap limit for each chatbot channel.
Click Save Allocations.

What Happens When Credits Run Out?

A Website Chatbot Hits Its Cap

The chatbot on that website turns off.
Visitors will see a polite note: "This chatbot is currently offline for scheduled maintenance."
(The endpoint returns a
text
```
403 Forbidden
```
response).
To restore: Simply increase that chatbot's spending cap in the Credits tab, or purchase a credit top-up.

Your Total Balance Reaches Zero

All website chatbots and the dashboard assistant will pause.
You still have full access to your settings, logs, and billing dashboard.
To restore: Purchase a credit top-up or subscribe to a monthly plan.

Subscription Plans vs. Pay-As-You-Go

We offer both flexible monthly plans and pay-as-you-go credit bundles:

Feature	Pay-As-You-Go (No Plan)	Subscription Plans
Purchasing	Buy credits as needed	Included monthly credits + auto-renewal
Overage Safety	Chatbots pause when balance hits 0	Chatbots stay online, billed at the end of the month
Payment Options	Direct local payment in GHS	Stored card billing in local GHS

Overages (No Interruption)

If you are on an active monthly plan and your credits hit zero, your website chatbots will stay online. Any additional usage is recorded as a small overage charge and billed to your payment card at the end of your billing cycle. This ensures zero service interruption for your customers.

Account Lifecycle States (Developer Reference)

Your tenant accounts are metered using these lifecycle states:

State	Condition	Effect
Active	Has credits or active billing plan	All chatbots and APIs fully operational
Empty	No active plan and credits reach 0	AI blocked, admin panel active
In Grace	Payment failed, inside grace window	AI blocked, admin panel active
Expired	Grace period ended without payment	AI blocked, admin panel active
Suspended	Administrative block	All access and API endpoints blocked