Credits as the universal currency
Nineteen of 43 corpus companies now meter usage in an internal 'credit' currency that floats across features. It simplifies the invoice and decouples the headline price from raw compute — at the cost of unit-economics transparency for the buyer.
What's happening — and why
What's happening: instead of charging separately for each feature — a minute of video, a thousand tokens, one image — many vendors sell a pool of generic 'credits' that every feature draws from at its own rate.
Why: when a single product spans wildly different cost structures, one currency makes the plan easy to present and lets the vendor adjust the dollar-to-compute ratio without republishing prices. The trade-off is transparency: buyers can no longer see what any given action actually costs, and the conversion rate can move under them.
How it works
Evidence over time
8 supporting · 2 counter — hover or tap a point for detail, click to jump to the row.
Evidence
| Company | Date | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| HeyGen | May 2026 | Cut over to a unified credit-based model; Generative Credits renamed Premium Credits (2026-05-04), one currency across avatars, dubbing and video. |
| Cursor (Anysphere) | Jun 2025 | Switched from request-based billing to a credit-pool model (the change that later triggered the July 2025 refund apology). |
| Recraft | Dec 2024 | Credit-pool overhaul replaced the flat $20 tier with Free/Basic/Advanced/Pro credit buckets after Recraft V3. |
| Descript | Sep 2025 | Media minutes + AI credits replaced transcription-hours as the metered unit. |
| Synthesia | Jan 2025 | Unified a single credit pool across all AI features. |
| Codeium | Jan 2026 | Windsurf Pro repriced at $15/mo with an expanded credit pool as the agentic-coding meter. |
| Cartesia | Sep 2024 | Tiered subscription plans denominated in credits with usage overages. |
| Ideogram | May 2026 | Free/Plus/Pro/Team tiers all metered in credits across image generation. |
For buyers
A credit hides the dollar-to-compute conversion, and that rate can change unilaterally — Cursor's 2025 credit-pool switch was opaque enough to force a public refund. Before committing, ask for the dollar value of a credit per feature and whether that ratio is contractually fixed.
For vendors
A credit economy needs a metering layer that converts every feature's real cost into credits, a balance/top-up system, and clear in-product disclosure of burn rate — plus the governance to change conversion rates without a trust rupture.
Outlook — what to watch
Credits will keep spreading as vendors ship more heterogeneous features (video, voice, agents) under one plan. The backlash risk grows with them: expect pressure for transparency — published per-feature credit costs, rollover, and 'what will this cost' estimators. The vendors that disclose conversion rates will use it as a trust differentiator.
Bottom line
Nineteen of 43 corpus companies meter in credits. It simplifies the invoice and decouples price from compute — at the cost of unit-economics transparency for the buyer.
FAQ
What are AI 'credits' and why do companies use them?
A credit is a synthetic currency that converts the cost of many different features (a minute of video, a thousand tokens, an agent run) into one unit. It simplifies the bill and lets vendors change the dollar-to-compute ratio without restating prices.
Are credit-based plans good or bad for buyers?
Convenient but less transparent. Because the conversion rate is set by the vendor and can change, it's harder to model true unit cost. Ask for the dollar value of a credit per feature and whether it's contractually fixed.
Which AI companies use credit pricing?
Across the corpus, 19 of 43 — including HeyGen, Cursor, Recraft, Synthesia, Descript, Cartesia and Ideogram. Pure-token API players like Anthropic and Cohere deliberately don't.