Credits are how you pay for AI work on Tesana. Every time the AI builds, edits, or fixes something in your game, it spends real computing power — credits meter that work.

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The one rule that explains everything

You are billed for actual AI usage, after the work happens. There are no estimates, no flat per-prompt fees, and no pre-charges. When a generation finishes (or stops for any reason), Tesana counts exactly what the AI read and wrote, prices it at the published per-model rates, and charges that amount — nothing more.
This is the same way AI providers bill developers, translated into credits so you never have to think about tokens or dollars mid-build.

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Why some prompts cost more than others

Two prompts that look similar can cost very different amounts, because the cost depends on how much work the AI actually did:
  • Project size — on every prompt the AI re-reads your whole project (code, scenes, recent changes) to understand context before acting. A brand-new game is a small read; a mature game is much more context for the AI to remember. Most of that re-reading happens at the heavily discounted cached rate (see Pricing), but deeper projects still cost more per prompt than fresh ones.
  • Scope of the request — “make the coins spin” touches one file; “add a save system, a shop, and three new levels” is a long agent session with lots of code written.
  • Model choice — Atomos is 1.67× Muranyi 3.5 per token, but it also takes on more in a single prompt, so a typical Atomos prompt runs several times a typical Muranyi one. Picking a cheaper model is the single biggest lever you have on cost.
The cheapest way to build is to iterate in small, specific steps. One focused change per prompt costs less — and produces better results — than giant “do everything” prompts that force the AI into a very long session.

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Where your credits come from

Your balance is made up of three kinds of credit, and they are spent soonest-to-expire first so nothing evaporates unused:
  1. Free daily credits — a fresh allowance every day, on every plan including Free. Spent first, because they reset tomorrow whether you used them or not.
  2. Bonus and top-up credits — one-time purchases and grants. Most keep until spent.
  3. Monthly plan credits — your subscription grant (e.g. 2,500/month on Pro). Resets every billing cycle.
The full ordering, including where longer-lived bonus credits sit, is on Plans & top-ups.

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Free daily credits

Every account gets a daily credit allowance you don’t pay for, with a monthly ceiling. It refills at 00:05 UTC and does not stack — today’s allowance replaces yesterday’s rather than adding to it, so there is no point saving it up. The allowance is enough to build a game a day on Muranyi Flash, which is what it is sized for. It is deliberately not enough to run the flagship model continuously — that is what a plan is for.
Daily credits are on top of a subscription, not instead of one. A paid plan’s monthly grant is added to the daily allowance rather than replacing it, and because daily credits are spent first, they only ever displace allowance you would otherwise have burned.
Your exact allowance and ceiling are shown on Plans & credits — they vary by country, in line with local pricing.

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Balance, overdraft, and stopping

Because billing happens after the work, a big generation can carry your balance past zero — you’re never billed for more than the AI actually did, but the final charge for an in-flight run can land below zero:
  • You need a small minimum balance (15 credits) to start a run — low enough that a single day’s free allowance clears it comfortably.
  • Mid-run, the engine tracks spend against your remaining balance and winds the session down gracefully as it approaches your budget, rather than cutting off mid-thought.
  • If a run does finish past zero, your balance goes negative and new runs are blocked until you top up. See Negative balance.

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Seeing exactly where credits went

Every charge is written to a per-prompt ledger you can inspect any time — which prompt, which game, which model, how many tokens, and your balance after. That’s the Usage page at tesana.ai/settings/usage.

Exact pricing

The per-model rate tables every charge is computed from

Reading your usage

How to audit any charge on your account