How credits work

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 never pick a model or think about tokens. Tesana chooses the best model for every run and translates the work into credits for you.

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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 project (code, assets, recent changes) to understand it before acting. A brand-new game is a small read; a mature game is a lot more context. Tesana caches that context so re-reading is cheap, 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 session with lots of code written.
• Run mode — a plan is a small fraction of the build it precedes; a Loop keeps working until the budget you set is used.

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Where your credits come from

Your balance is made up of two kinds of credit, and they are spent soonest-to-expire first so nothing evaporates unused:

1. Bonus and top-up credits — one-time purchases and grants such as referral rewards.
2. Monthly plan credits — your subscription grant (e.g. 2,500/month on Pro). Resets every billing cycle.

The full ordering is on Plans & top-ups.

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On the Free plan

The Free plan doesn’t include credits, so building needs a paid plan or a top-up. A free account can still describe a new game and get a plan for it, up to a daily limit.

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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 positive balance to start a run.
• 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 credits cover it. See Negative balance.

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Seeing where credits went

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