Understand credits, reservations and charges

See what’s available, what’s held for running work and what you’ve spent.

Updated 2026-11-01

Every piece of work in Wavemaker is paid in credits from the active workspace's wallet. Credits are reserved when a step starts, charged for what the step actually used, and the unused part comes back. A step already running when a limit is reached finishes; you're never charged past the limit.

Check your balance

1. Open Usage and credits. It is in Settings under Credits and sales.
2. Read the three cards at the top: Balance, Currently reserved and Net recorded charges.
3. Scroll to Recent usage to see where credits went in the last 30 days.
4. Open Credit history and funding for every reservation, charge, refund and top-up.

The balance also appears in the app's side rail. Balance is what you can spend now, rounded down to whole credits, so you are never shown more than you can spend. Currently reserved is held by work that is still running. Net recorded charges covers the dates set in Filter activity, and its note shows the credits added in the same dates.

Each workspace has its own wallet. When you switch workspace, Usage and credits shows that workspace's wallet. Credits never move between workspaces, and any member's work in a workspace spends that workspace's credits. See Account and workspaces.

Credits and reservations

Before a step runs, Wavemaker reserves enough credits to cover it, so the same credits can't be spent twice. When the step finishes, Wavemaker charges what it actually used, up to the reservation, and returns the rest. The assistant's own thinking steps reserve what they are expected to cost and are charged what they used: one that runs past what is left of a limit finishes, is charged up to the limit, and its receipt shows the rest as Covered by Wavemaker, never charged. A long step can reserve more in small steps while it runs.

By default the history shows credits added, charged and refunded. Select Show reservation steps to see every hold and return as well. Reservations are not charges.

Open any record to see its receipt: the amount reserved, recorded charges, the final charge (or Not yet known), the amount refunded, and the models and services that ran. Each line says whether it was paid from Wavemaker credits or by Your provider account. GPU work also shows its GPU time in seconds.

Filter and export your history

Use Filter activity to narrow the list by date, activity type (Execution, Item acquisition or Wallet funding), payer and other fields. Date filters use whole UTC days; times are shown in your timezone. Export usage downloads every record that matches your filters as a JSON file named wavemaker-usage.json. If new usage arrives while you page through the list, the page reloads to the latest view and says so.

What a message costs

A reply costs the media it makes (images, video, voice, music, edits and renders) plus the assistant's own model use. Both appear as separate lines in your history.

To estimate a message before you send it:

1. Write the message in the composer.
2. Open the settings beside Send, choose Limits and expand Planning budget.
3. Select Check what this message costs.

The check runs nothing and spends nothing. It shows the expected cost, a likely highest cost and the assistant's share. If your balance is below the likely highest cost, it says the reply may stop before it finishes. A plain message names no format or length, so its check covers only the assistant's own work; what you make costs more. The check is an estimate only: it is not a limit. Each step reserves its own cost when it runs, and the final charge depends on what the assistant actually makes.

Every step is charged at the rate in force when it runs. The public Pricing page explains how charging works and lists current plans and packs.

How prices are set

Each rate comes from what that work costs Wavemaker, by one rule:

• Our own GPU time and compute is charged at twice what it costs us. That covers the models we run on our own GPUs, such as H3 and LTX video and SeedVR2 upscaling, and our edits, renders and the sandbox that runs scripts.
• Everything else is charged at what it costs us plus 10%. That covers the assistant's own model use and the partner models and services it calls, such as Gemini, ElevenLabs, Kling, Runway, xAI, OpenAI and Firecrawl. The 10% pays for card fees, about 4%, and rounding.

The credit itself is unchanged: a 300-credit pack is $19.99, and Pro plans sell credits for less. Balances keep their credits; only the rate for each step changed. This rule replaced one that charged twice cost for everything, so the assistant's model and partner work now cost about 45% less, and our GPU work costs the same.

What a finished video typically costs

A fully animated, finished video, with script, narration, music, edit, subtitles, review and retakes, typically costs:

These are estimates modelled from measured productions, not quotes. The 5 and 10 minute figures are extrapolated from shorter films and could be a quarter higher or lower. More takes, a partner video model or High quality cost more. A film made from narrated stills uses little GPU time and costs far less. Dollar figures are at the pack price, $19.99 for 300 credits; on a Pro plan the same video costs fewer dollars. To price your own message, use Check what this message costs.

Spending limits

Work stops for money in one of three ways:

• Your balance runs out. The next step cannot reserve its cost.
• A spending limit you stated in the conversation is reached, for example "keep this under 200 credits".
• A workspace limit is reached, such as a person's monthly cap.

Owners and admins can set a monthly cap for each person. Open Usage and credits, find Workspace billing, enter a number under Monthly caps per person and select Save. Leave the field blank for no cap. A cap covers one calendar month in UTC. It counts settled charges and credits still reserved; a refund doesn't restore cap room. The same card shows Where credits went, grouped by person, credential, project or tool.

If a request is bigger than your balance

When the first message of a new chat asks for more than your balance is likely to cover, Wavemaker tells you before anything runs: what that work usually costs, what you have, and what would fit. Nothing is charged and your message is saved.

• Make this instead sends your message with the smaller version you picked.
• Add credits opens checkout with a pack that covers the difference, then brings you back to send it.
• Start anyway sends it as written. The work runs until the credits run out and keeps what it made.

The price is an estimate from similar work, not a quote: what you are charged is what the work actually uses. If you have enough, you see none of this. Later messages in a conversation aren't checked this way; the agent asks you first when something won't fit.

When credits run out

When your balance is low, the composer shows Running low with the credits you have left, and the note Work in progress always finishes. A step already running when a limit is reached finishes; you're never charged past the limit. A longer reply can still stop before its next step. When the balance reaches zero, it shows Out of credits: your plan and drafts are saved, and nothing new starts until you add more. If a conversation is waiting for credits, the notice names it.

If a reply stops because credits ran out:

1. Read the stop notice under the reply. It says what was saved and what was charged.
2. Add credits. See Add credits.
3. Return to the conversation. The notice under the reply shows Needs you with Stopped: and Done: lines; select Continue, or Stop here to leave it as it is.

Finished files are kept. Work the reply had already queued, such as a shot waiting to be filmed, keeps its reserved credits and finishes: it lands in the project, and Continue can use it. The notice says how many queued jobs still hold credits. Stop here cancels the ones that have not started and returns their credits; a step already running still finishes. Continuing is a new request that reserves its own credits. A provider outage, a busy service or a refused request is a different problem: read the message in the conversation before you add credits.

Add credits

1. Open Usage and credits.
2. Select Add credits on the Balance card.
3. Choose a credit pack or a Pro plan. Each option shows its credits and price, and a plan is marked Recurring.
4. Select Continue. The button shows the price of the option you chose.
5. Pay on Stripe's secure checkout page. You return to Wavemaker when you finish.

Credits arrive when Stripe confirms the payment, not when the checkout page closes. A checkout link stays open for one hour. A payment that doesn't match its offer exactly, for example one with a discount or tax added, is held for review instead of adding credits automatically. If credits don't arrive, contact support. If Add credits is missing or checkout says it isn't available for your workspace, ask your workspace administrator or contact support.

• Credit packs are one-time payments. Their credits never expire, and a pack never refills automatically.
• Pro plans are subscriptions that grant credits each billing period. Subscribers can also buy top-ups at their plan's rate. See Plans and pricing.

The public Pricing page lists the current packs and plans with their credits and prices.

Credits are spent in order of expiry: credits that expire soonest are used first, and credits with no expiry are used last.

Starter credits

A new account gets 300 starter credits once, labeled "Your first video is on us". The message you see after sign-up shows the date they expire, 14 days after they were granted. If some are still unspent after 10 days, Wavemaker sends one reminder email.

Starter credits work in the Wavemaker app, its hosted agent, and apps you connect with sign-in, such as Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or the CLI. They can't be spent through an API key until the workspace has made a payment. A request refused for this reason says that starter credits need a payment. Videos made before the workspace has paid carry a small Wavemaker badge. See Plans and pricing.

A workspace you create later starts with an empty wallet.

Work on your own provider key

If you save a key for a provider in Connections, that provider's models run on your key:

• Your provider bills you directly. Wavemaker charges no credits for those calls, and they appear in your history with the payer Your provider account.
• Your own personal key is used before a key shared with the workspace. Another member's personal key is never used.
• If the provider refuses your key (invalid, expired, out of quota or rate limited), the work stops with a message naming the connection. It never switches to Wavemaker credits. Replace the key in the connection, or revoke the connection to go back to paying with credits.
• Wavemaker's own GPU models, edits and renders, the assistant's own model use, and partner models inside graphs are still paid from credits.

Keys work for OpenAI, Gemini, xAI, Anthropic, ElevenLabs, Kling, MiniMax, Runway, Luma, Ideogram, Sync, Seedance, Seedream, Alibaba and Firecrawl.

Agent Rush

Agent Rush lets the agent pay a surcharge to start a GPU job sooner when the queue has a wait, up to a daily credit budget you set. Set it under Agent Rush in Settings › General with Rush budget (credits a day, 0 is off). It is 0, off, by default. A rush that didn't start sooner is refunded. Rush isn't turned on in Wavemaker yet, so no job is rushed or charged for it today.

When a step fails or is cancelled

• A step that never started returns its whole reservation.
• A step that fails or is cancelled after it started is charged for the work it did up to that point, never more than its reservation.
• For GPU jobs, a failure caused only by Wavemaker, or a machine the GPU provider took back, is not charged. A job that ran out of time or memory is charged for what it ran.

If a charge looks wrong

1. Find the record under Credit history and funding and open its receipt.
2. Select Open followed by the conversation's name to see what ran.
3. If a record says Confirming usage, wait: your original request is kept and nothing new has started.
4. If it still looks wrong, contact support and include the receipt ID.

Closing the browser does not stop work or lose its charges. Don't send the same message again to check on it: a new message is new work and is charged again.

Card refunds and disputes

If a card payment is refunded or disputed, Wavemaker pauses a matching share of the credits that payment bought. The history shows Credits paused for a payment review. If those credits were already spent, new work in the workspace can't start until the case is resolved; work already running finishes. When a dispute is resolved in your favor, the paused credits become available again.

Related guides

Plans and pricing · Account and workspaces · Recover interrupted work · Client credentials

Related guidance

• Manage your account, workspaces and team
• Client credentials and provider keys
• Plans, pricing and what each includes
• Your data: export, deletion and privacy settings
• Recover interrupted or uncertain work