What you pay, and what you keep.

What a credit is

A credit is the unit we meter work in. Reading a chapter, building your story bible, and writing a critique all cost credits, because each one costs us real money to run against the AI models that do the reading.

What a piece of work costs depends on two things: how long the chapter is and how many partners you ask to read it. Rough guide:

Those are estimates, and we’d rather you never had to rely on them: the app shows you the cost before you commit, and you’re only charged for work that actually ran. We set credits aside when a job starts and return whatever the job didn’t use when it finishes. If something fails partway through, the unused portion comes straight back to you.

Plans

Every plan unlocks the same features. The only difference is how many credits arrive each month.

Buying credits without a plan

If you write in bursts (nothing for two months, then a whole manuscript in two weeks) a subscription may not suit you. You can buy credits outright instead, with no plan and no recurring charge:

• $10 - 80,000 credits
• $25 - 200,000 credits
• $50 - 400,000 credits

Credits bought this way cost more per credit than credits that come with a plan. That’s deliberate, and we’d rather say so plainly than let you find out later: a plan is the better deal if you use the service regularly, and buying outright is the better deal if you don’t. You can also top up while subscribed if you run out mid-manuscript.

Credits you buy never expire. No 12-month clock, no use-it-or-lose-it. You paid for them; they wait for you.

Do credits roll over?

Yes, and this is the part worth reading, because there are two kinds of credits and they behave differently.

We spend your plan credits first on purpose, because those are the ones with a clock on them. It means the credits most likely to expire are always the ones being used up, and the credits you paid cash for are the last to go.

Rollover is capped: you can carry at most 2 months of unused allowance. So on a plan with 100,000 credits a month, your plan balance tops out at 300,000: this month’s grant plus the 2 before it. We cap it because credits that pile up forever eventually turn into a nasty surprise for somebody, and we’d rather the rule be boring and predictable.

Changing or canceling your plan

• Upgrading takes effect immediately, and your new, larger allowance lands right away; you don’t wait until next month, and you don’t lose what you already had.
• Downgrading takes effect at the end of the period you’ve already paid for. Nothing changes until then.
• Canceling is one click in your account, with no cancellation fee and no phone call. You keep full access until the end of the period you’ve paid for.
• After canceling, your writing stays exactly where it is. Your projects, chapters, story bible, and partners are all still there, and any credits you bought outright are still spendable.

If a payment fails

Cards expire and banks decline things for no good reason. When that happens we’ll email you, and our payment processor will retry the charge a few times over roughly two weeks. You keep working during that window.

If it still hasn’t gone through by the end, the plan pauses and no new credits arrive. Your work is never touched, and any credits you bought outright remain yours. Update your card and everything picks up where it left off.

Refunds

• Credits you bought but haven’t spent - refundable in full within 30 days. Just ask.
• A charge you didn’t mean to make - a renewal you meant to cancel, a plan you signed up for by mistake - tell us within 30 days and we’ll refund it.
• Work that failed - you don’t need to ask. Credits for work that didn’t complete are returned automatically, as part of how the system runs.
• Credits you’ve already spent on feedback we delivered aren’t generally refundable - but if the service genuinely failed you, write to us. We’d rather sort it out than win the argument.

Sales tax

Prices shown are before tax. Where we’re required to collect sales tax, it’s calculated at checkout from your billing address and shown before you confirm - you’ll never be charged a tax amount you didn’t see first. Your receipt itemizes it.

Critique Partner is currently sold to customers in the United States only. We’d like to open that up, and we will once the tax registrations are in place elsewhere.

If prices change

We’ll email you at least 30 days before any change affects you, and the price you’re paying holds until your next renewal. If a new price doesn’t work for you, cancel before it takes effect and you’ll never be charged it.

We may also change which AI models do the work, and what a given piece of work costs in credits. In practice the models tend to get better at a given price rather than cheaper — so when we can move you to a stronger model without changing what it costs, we do, and the same credits buy you a better critique. If work does get cheaper, that lands immediately and you simply get more for your credits.

If a change would make work cost more credits, we’ll tell you before it takes effect. Where we can, we’d rather wait for a better model to come down in price than charge you more for the same work.

You’ll never be surprised by your balance

• Your credit balance is visible at the top of every page.
• You see an estimated cost before you submit anything.
• We email you when your balance drops below 20%, and again if it reaches zero.
• Your account page shows every credit that’s ever arrived or been spent, and what it was spent on.

Nothing here is designed to catch you out. If you ever look at your balance and can’t work out why it says what it says, that’s a bug in how we’ve explained it - tell us and we’ll fix it.

Questions about a charge

A real person reads billing email and will sort it out. Email us with your account address and roughly when the charge happened.

Payments are processed by Stripe. We never see or store your card number - see Privacy for what we do hold.