Skip to main content
This page explains what you pay for in Squad, what credits pay for, and what happens when credits run out. For the steps to buy credits or cancel, see Manage your subscription, credits, and workspace data.

​
The separate charges

Squad keeps each kind of cost separate. You pay for each one in a different way. For the current plan price, see Squad pricing.

​
The Squad plan

There is one plan. You pay at checkout, before your workspace is built. Squad has no free trial. Your first payment has a 7-day money-back guarantee. For the refund rules and for how to cancel, see Manage your subscription, credits, and workspace data.

​
Your AI provider

Your agents run on the AI account that you connect, such as a ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini account. Your provider bills you for that usage under your own plan or key. Squad does not charge for model usage, and model usage never uses credits. Each run in Runs shows its token usage in the USAGE section. To connect a provider, see Connect your AI subscription.

​
What credits pay for

Credits pay for one thing: the 57 built-in research tools. These tools get external data for your agents, for example web searches, page scrapes, company and person lookups, reviews, and SEO reports. The Billing screen says it like this: “Credits pay for one thing: optional built-in tools that scrape external data. Your own apps and data never use them.” These things never use credits:
  • Model usage on your AI provider.
  • Apps that you connect in Integrations, and MCP servers.
  • Email that your agents send and receive.
  • A research call that fails. Squad records it at 0 credits.
  • A research result that comes from the cache. Squad records it at 0 credits.
  • Chat, missions, docs, schedules, and the other everyday work of your agents.
A research call can ask for fresh data instead of cached data. A fresh call costs normal credits. Each research tool has its own price. Some tools have a base price plus a price for each item returned. When a tool returns fewer items than it asked for, you pay only for the items that it returned. To see the price of each tool, open Settings > Billing and find the CREDIT COST PER USAGE card, or see the Research tools reference.

​
The monthly allowance

Every workspace gets 1,000 included credits each calendar month. All workspaces get the same amount.
  • The new allowance arrives at the start of each calendar month, in UTC time. It can arrive a few hours after midnight UTC.
  • Only a workspace with an active subscription gets the allowance.
  • Included credits that you do not use expire at the end of the month. They do not add up from month to month.
  • Squad spends your included credits first, and your purchased credits last.
On Settings > Billing, the MONTHLY ALLOWANCE card shows how many credits you used and when the allowance resets. The Credits left tile shows your full balance.

​
Purchased credits

You can buy credit packs on Settings > Billing. The Buy credits card shows the number of credits in a pack and the price of a pack. You see the total and confirm it before Squad charges your card.
  • Purchased credits carry over from month to month while your subscription is active.
  • You can buy from 1 to 20 packs in one purchase.
  • Squad charges the card on file for your subscription.
  • You cannot buy credits while your workspace is locked.
  • Agents cannot buy credits. Only you can start a purchase from the dashboard.
For the steps, see Buy credits.

​
Auto-recharge

Auto-recharge buys packs for you when your balance gets low. It is off until you turn it on. When it is on, you set three values: When you turn it on for the first time, the fields show 5,000 credits, 2 packs, and 6 packs a month. The form saves each change by itself, half a second after you stop typing. Auto-recharge starts a purchase after a research call takes your balance below the threshold. It stops when it reaches the monthly maximum. If a charge fails, auto-recharge waits one hour before it tries again. Auto-recharge does not run while your workspace is locked.
The monthly maximum is the only spending limit that you set in the dashboard. Set it to the most that you are willing to spend on credits in a month.

​
When credits get low or run out

When auto-recharge is off and your balance goes below 1,000 credits, Squad sends the notification “Credits are running low”. If you saved an auto-recharge threshold before, Squad uses that threshold instead of 1,000. When your balance is too low for a research call, Squad refuses the call. The agent gets a message that says how many credits the call needs and how many you have. Squad does not wait for auto-recharge before it refuses the call. Cached results still work at a zero balance, because they are free. The rest of your squad keeps working at a zero balance. Only the research tools stop. To continue, buy credits or turn on auto-recharge. Agents tell you about a refused research call in plain words. For example: The agents’ instructions also tell them to estimate a large research job first, and to ask you before a job of 500 credits or more. This is an instruction, not a limit that Squad enforces. To enforce a limit, use a mission budget or the auto-recharge maximum.

​
Budgets for a mission

An agent can set a credit budget for one mission. For example, you can tell an agent “don’t spend more than 50 credits on this research”. The agent then records a budget for that mission with a tool. Squad refuses any research call that would take the mission over its budget. Know these limits before you rely on a mission budget:
  • There is no dashboard control for mission budgets. You cannot see, set, or change them in the dashboard.
  • The agent sets the budget, so the agent can also change it.
  • A mission budget is the only credit limit per mission. There are no daily, weekly, or per-tool credit limits.
To keep a hard ceiling on spending, use the auto-recharge monthly maximum, or turn off the research tools.

​
Turn research tools off

The Research tools switch on Settings > Billing turns all research tools on or off at the same time. When the switch is off, no tool can spend credits. Agents can still browse the web on their workspace computer and use the apps that you connect. To turn tools on or off one by one, use the Tools page. The Billing switch overwrites the choices that you made on the Tools page. The line under the switch shows the state:

​
The inbox add-on

An email inbox for an agent is a paid add-on. No inbox is included in the plan.
  • You pay for each inbox, every month.
  • The app shows the price of an inbox before you confirm. The first charge is pro-rated for the rest of your billing cycle.
  • An inbox counts from the moment you add it, also while it is still being set up.
  • When you delete an inbox, Squad removes it from your subscription.
  • Sending and receiving email never uses credits.
To add an inbox, see Give an agent an email inbox.

​
Where to see your spending

Settings > Billing shows your credit spending in these cards:
  • USAGE BY TOOL, USAGE BY AGENT, USAGE BY TASK, and USAGE BY MISSION
  • RECENT CREDIT USAGE, which also shows purchases and grants
  • CREDIT COST PER USAGE, the price of each research tool
In Runs, a research run shows the credits that it used, or “cache hit” when it was free. For more about Runs, see See what your agents did.

​
What Squad does not do

  • Squad does not bill you for model usage. Your AI provider does.
  • Squad does not add credits to a locked workspace, and it does not charge a locked workspace for credits.
  • Squad does not give the dashboard a per-mission, per-day, or per-tool credit limit.
  • Squad does not let agents buy credits or add inboxes.
For numbers that are not about credits or billing, see Limits and defaults.