Credits and plans

The Studio trial

The trial is the Studio plan, free, for 3 days. It is not a cut-down version of it and it is not a tier of its own: the whole studio with every build included and your own images and artwork brought in without limit, exactly as on the plan, plus 120 credits - about 3 AI pictures, which is the only thing a trial runs out of besides the days. No card. One trial per person. Start it from the pricing page; if you sign up from there it starts on the way in.

While the free days run, every screen calls it Studio trial - the badge beside your name included, with the date it changes under it. That holds even after you have chosen what comes next: choosing early does not start the plan early, so the badge goes on saying Studio trial until the last free day and only then becomes the plan you picked. If you choose Studio and later change your mind, the badge follows - it reads then Pay as you go from that moment, and what you are on today does not change either way.

On the last day, whichever you chose simply happens. Nothing runs at midnight and nothing needs to: the date passing is the change. If you kept Studio, the plan carries on and the first charge lands that day. If you said you would carry on Pay as you go - or bought a pack, which settles the same thing - that is where you land, with the credits you have. Either way you sign in the next morning to the account you already had.

If you chose nothing, you land on Pay as you go and we email you to say so. Nothing is deleted and nothing is charged: your projects, your exports and your credits are all where you left them, bringing in your own artwork still costs nothing, and the studio stays open. What changes is that a build costs credits again - and the trial's 120 credits are less than one build, so that is worth knowing before you make a picture you cannot yet turn into layers. Either of the two ways below is still open whenever you want it: keep Studio, which changes nothing except that it stops being free, or carry on pay as you go with the credits you have left. Buying a pack counts as carrying on. You can keep Studio during the trial too, and it costs nothing on the day you do it: your card is saved, the free days you have not used stay free, and the first charge lands on the day the trial would have ended - which then becomes your billing date. Choose in the trial's last two days and it lands two days after you choose instead, because the payment provider needs two days' notice of a first charge; the extra time is free as well. Choosing on day one and choosing on day three cost exactly the same, so there is never a reason to wait. The payment page counts your remaining free days and its button says Start trial - that is its wording for the days you already have, not a second trial and not a second charge.

Two ways to use the studio

Pay as you go costs nothing a month. Make an account and the whole studio is open: every stack style available today, every layer count, every export, every control. Two things cost credits, and the studio shows the number on the button before you press it: an AI picture, and the first time a picture is built into layers.

Studio is $14.99 a month or $149.90 a year (pay for ten months, get twelve). It is the same studio with every build included, as many as you like. AI pictures still cost credits, or run on your own OpenAI key.

What a credit is

A cent. A picture costs credits according to how big and how detailed you asked for it, so a quick draft costs a fraction of a finished piece: a finished one, at Image quality High, is about 40 credits if it is tall or wide, and about 27 if it is square. A draft at Low is roughly a thirteenth of that, which is why finding the composition at Low and only then moving up makes a pack last.

What costs credits

• An AI picture, on either tier, by its quality and shape - or nothing, if you add your own OpenAI key.
• Building a picture into layers, on Pay as you go only: 250 credits the first time a picture is built, whether that is Generate Layers in Stepped Layers or Build Scene in Landscape Silhouette Layers. Every rebuild of that same picture is free - change the layer count, the depth, the material, the finish, the repairs, and build again as often as you like. A new picture (generated, uploaded, or brought back from a scene’s depth-map history) is a new build. A copy opened from a saved file, while the project or scene it came from is still in your account, carries that same picture, so building the copy is free too once the picture has been built. A finished design is a picture too: opening it costs nothing, and its first build costs 250 credits, once per design however many times you open it. On Studio builds are included. A build made during a trial or while you had Studio was included rather than paid for, so on Pay as you go that picture's first build costs 250 like any other; its rebuilds after that are free. Moving a piece to another layer, or switching one off, in the Layer Editor rebuilds the stack too, so it waits for that first build: it asks you to press Rebuild Layers, which shows the price, and is free from then on.
• An AI redraw of a photo in Vectorize a Photo, or a refinement of one: 36 credits for a tall or wide photo and 45 for a square one, on either tier - or nothing on your own OpenAI key. Each is one AI call, in Pen & ink or Line art. The dither, going back to an earlier version, and resizing or re-downloading a drawing are free.

Nothing else does. Uploading your own image or artwork, cleaning the mask, recolouring, validating, previewing and exporting are all free on both tiers.

Not happy with a build?

On Pay as you go, if the layers a build made are not what you wanted, you can ask for its 250 credits back within 14 days of the build. The studio says so in a strip under the steps, on the project the credits were spent on, with a Request a refund button; your account page lists every build you can still ask about, under Not happy with a build?. Say in a sentence or two what went wrong. We open the project itself, look at the layers, and decide - and email you the answer either way.

• It covers the build charge - the 250 credits a first build costs. AI pictures are not part of it; a picture or a build that fails is already refunded on its own, without asking.
• One request per build. A declined request is the answer for that build. Our email says why, and so does your account page.
• Credits, not money. A refund puts the credits back on your balance, where you can spend them on anything. It is not money back to your card, and credit packs stay non-refundable.
• The picture is unpaid again. A refund undoes the charge, so building that same picture again afterwards is charged as a new build.

Two ways to pay for AI pictures

• Credits - buy a pack whenever you want one. They do not expire.
• Your own OpenAI key - add one on your account page and AI pictures run on it instead. OpenAI bills you directly at their rates and nothing here is metered for them. On Pay as you go you then pay only for builds; on Studio the subscription is all you pay us. Remove the key and you are back to credits. We ask OpenAI whether the key works before keeping it. Credits you have stay on your account while a key is saved - your balance and its history stay on your account page, and simply stop going down for pictures. If OpenAI refuses the key - revoked, out of quota or at its billing limit - no picture is made and nothing is charged: the message says so, your credit history marks the picture nothing charged, and you replace the key on your account page or remove it to go back to credits.

In the Windows app

The Windows app can make its AI pictures on the same credits. It needs no plan: a free account - Pay as you go, with no subscription and nothing to pay a month - holds the credits, and the app spends them only on the pictures you generate. With no OpenAI key of its own, the first Generate asks you to sign in to your account here, once, in your browser - press Connect this PC and the app is signed in. From then on each AI picture it makes - Generate Source, Generate Depth Map, or redrawing a photo - comes off the same balance at the same prices as on the website: about 27 credits for a finished square picture and 40 for a tall or wide one, 36 to redraw a tall or wide photo and 45 a square one. That is all the app spends credits on: building layers, 3D projects and every download in the app are free, whatever your plan. A picture that fails is not charged, and one whose answer is lost - the connection dropped, or the app closed mid-picture - is brought in by the app afterwards, charged once. On your ledger those rows say in the Windows app.

Your account page lists the PCs signed in, under PCs signed in for AI pictures, and signs one out; changing or resetting your password signs them all out. If your account has its own OpenAI key saved here, the app's pictures run on that key and use no credits - its Generate buttons say on your key, with no price - and a key added in the app's own Settings takes over from both. If OpenAI refuses the key saved here, the app's picture is not made and nothing is taken from your credits. Remove the key while the app is open and its next Generate is refused with nothing charged, saying the picture now costs credits; the button then shows the price.

Credit packs

Three packs, the same on either tier, from your account page or the pricing page - and one can be added to the Studio checkout so the plan and the credits are one payment:

• 1,500 credits for $15.00 - 6 pay-as-you-go builds, or about 37 finished pictures or 500 drafts, at 1.0¢ a credit.
• 2,500 credits for $20.00 - 10 pay-as-you-go builds, or about 62 finished pictures or 833 drafts, at 0.8¢ a credit.
• 3,500 credits for $26.00 - 14 pay-as-you-go builds, or about 87 finished pictures or 1,166 drafts, at 0.7¢ a credit.

Credits do not expire. A pack sits in your account until you spend it - through a quiet month, through a cancellation, through coming back a year later. There is no allowance to use up before a date. Packs are not refundable, whether or not the credits in them have been spent.

Coming off one of the old plans

If you are on Maker, Artisan or Workshop, nothing has been taken away: it renews and its monthly credits keep arriving for as long as you want it, and builds are included as they always were. Moving to Studio is a step down in price, so it takes effect when the month you have already paid for runs out rather than today. Nothing is charged, and no refund is given for the difference. Credits already in your account come with you.

Updating your card

On your account page, Update card & invoices opens a page hosted by Stripe where you can change the card, see every invoice and download receipts. Your card details never touch us, which is why it is their page rather than ours.

If a renewal fails we email you straight away with a link to that page, and keep trying the card. Nothing is deleted while that is happening, and your plan keeps working for two weeks from the first failed payment; after that the studio waits until the card is settled. Updating the card is what settles it - choosing Studio again would start a second subscription beside the one still being retried, so the pricing page sends you here instead. Or cancel instead: after those two weeks, Cancel ends the plan the same day rather than at the end of the period, the payment that failed is not tried again, and you are on Pay as you go straight away, with the studio open on your credits. If the card is never settled, the payment provider eventually stops trying and the plan ends the same way.

Leaving the plan

Two buttons do this and they do the same thing: Cancel on your account page, and Switch to Pay as you go on the pricing page. Nothing is cancelled in the sense of an account ending - the plan stops renewing and you land on Pay as you go - so that is what the page, the confirmation and the email all say.

It stops renewing and you are not charged again. We email you to say so, naming the day it happens - and if you change your mind before then, choosing the plan again calls it off and we email you that too, so the last thing in your inbox is never a change that is no longer coming. It keeps working until the end of the period you have already paid for, because no refund is given for the remainder. After that you are on Pay as you go: your account, your projects and any credits you bought stay exactly where they are, and the first build of a new picture costs credits again. Subscribing again puts everything back.

If you kept Studio during a trial and cancel before the first charge lands, nothing is taken at all - not on the day you cancel, and not on the date the plan was going to start. It runs to the end of your free days and then you are on Pay as you go, having paid nothing. There is no refund because there was never a payment.

Questions