# Tempomat credits: what a credit buys

> Tempomat credits pricing: what each action costs (images, videos, builds, reports, scans), what each plan includes, and why the cost shows first.

*Product · By The Tempomat team · Published Oct 4, 2026* · https://tempomat.tech/blog/what-a-credit-buys

Tempomat credits pay for the work that costs us money to run: an image is 4 credits, a 5-second product video 40 credits, a campaign build 10 credits and a saved report 5 credits. Every plan includes monthly credits, from 1,500 on Starter, and the cost always shows before a job starts.

## What is a Tempomat credit?

A **credit** is the unit Tempomat uses to count work that has a real cost behind it: AI image and video generation, model time in chat, market scans and campaign builds. Your plan price covers the product; credits cover the jobs. Reading your data, opening dashboards, approving changes and editing briefs cost nothing.

One price list serves the whole product. The number on a Studio button, on an approval card in chat and on the reservation in your credit history all come from the same calculation, so they can't disagree.

## How many credits does each action cost?

*Credit costs*

| Action | Credits | Notes |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Image (from a prompt or a product photo) | 4 | Per image |
| Product video or text to video, 5 s | 40 | From Creative Studio or chat |
| Product video or text to video, 8 s | 60 |  |
| UGC presenter video | 100 per started 15 s | 15 s = 100, 30 s = 200, 45 s = 300, 60 s = 400 |
| Campaign build | 10 | Refunded if nothing was created on Meta |
| Bulk Launch | 10 per campaign | One build per row |
| Save a report | 5 | Saved to your gallery, with PDF export |
| Scheduled report | 5 | Per run |
| Market scan (Discovery, Competitor Ads) | 5 per source | Facebook ads, TikTok or stores |
| Competitor ad search in chat | 2 | Free when the same search ran in the last 24 hours |
| AI Actions scan | 3 | Only when you click Scan now; the morning scan is free |
| Creative brief | 1 | From the Swipe File, the Strategist or chat |

Some AI help is free on purpose, because it only saves you typing: Enhance prompt in Creative Studio, Write with Tempomat for UGC scripts, filling a brief or ad copy from a store product, and keyword suggestions in Discovery.

Chat is metered by what the model actually does. Each step costs ceil(new input tokens ÷ 20,000 + output tokens ÷ 2,000) credits. Input the model already read earlier in the conversation and was cached isn't counted again, so a long chat doesn't get more expensive per question just because it is long.

## How many credits come with each plan?

*Plans and monthly credits*

| Plan | Price per month | Price per year | Credits per month |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Starter | $49 | $490 | 1,500 |
| Growth | $149 | $1,490 | 5,000 |
| Agency | $399 | $3,990 | 15,000 |

Yearly billing costs 10 months of the monthly price and still gives credits every month. Every plan starts with a 7-day free trial with 100 credits to try things. If you need more in a busy month, a credit pack adds 1,000 credits for $19, about 1.9 cents a credit.

To picture a month on Starter: its 1,500 credits would buy 375 images, or 37 five-second videos, or 150 campaign builds, if you spent them on one thing only. Real months mix them. The [pricing page](https://tempomat.tech/pricing) has the plan limits (brands, seats, ad accounts, scheduled reports).

> **Which credits are used first:** Plan credits reset each month and unused ones don't carry over. Credits from a pack never expire. Your monthly credits are spent before pack credits.

## Why does the cost always show before anything runs?

Because a surprise bill, even in credits, breaks trust. Every job follows the same three steps.

1. **Show.** The cost is next to the button before you click, in Creative Studio, UGC Avatars, Discovery and Competitor Ads.
2. **Reserve.** When the job starts, its credits are set aside. In chat, any job costing 20 credits or more waits for your approval first, with the cost and your balance on the card.
3. **Settle.** If the job succeeds, the reservation is charged. If it fails, the credits come back. A campaign build that created nothing on Meta is refunded; one that built part of the campaign keeps its reservation for the retry, so finishing it costs nothing extra.

Credits never touch your ad budget. Ad spend is paid to Meta, TikTok or Google on your own billing, and turning a campaign on always needs your approval ([why we never auto-activate](https://tempomat.tech/blog/paused-by-default)).

## What happens when I run out of credits?

Everything you can read keeps working: dashboards, reports, campaigns, the activity log. What stops is anything that costs credits: new chat messages, generation, builds and scans. A scheduled report due while you are at zero is skipped, not failed, and runs again on its next date. Buy a pack or wait for the monthly reset and you carry on where you were. See the [features page](https://tempomat.tech/features) for what each tool does.

## Frequently asked questions

**How much does Tempomat cost?**

Starter is $49 a month with 1,500 credits, Growth is $149 a month with 5,000 credits, Agency is $399 a month with 15,000 credits. Yearly billing costs 10 months of the monthly price. Every plan starts with a 7-day free trial.

**Do Tempomat credits expire?**

Monthly plan credits reset at the start of each billing month, so unused ones expire. Credits from a 1,000-credit pack never expire.

**Do I get my credits back if a generation fails?**

Yes. Credits are reserved when a job starts and only charged when it succeeds. A failed image, video or scan returns its credits, and a campaign build that created nothing on Meta is refunded.

**Are credits used for my ad spend?**

No. Credits pay for work inside the product, such as generation, scans, builds and reports. Your ad spend is billed by the ad platform to your own payment method.

**Does chatting with the AI cost credits?**

Yes, a little, based on how much the model reads and writes in each step. Input it already read earlier in the conversation and cached isn't charged again.

**See the cost before every job** Try it with 100 credits during the trial, then pick the plan that fits your month.

[Start your 7-day free trial](https://app.tempomat.tech/signup)