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Credits are what AI work costs. This page explains exactly when a credit is taken, how much, and what is free — so you can predict a month’s spend before it happens. The short version: credits burn only when an AI agent answers. One conversation costs 1, 3 or 10 credits per 24 hours, depending on the effort level of the agent that answered — no matter how many messages that conversation contains. Voice calls and knowledge-base uploads are charged separately on top.

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What a credit is

A credit is a whole unit of AI usage. There are no fractions of a credit. On current plans one credit is worth $0.14, which is why the Credits card shows an approximate money value next to your balance.

The Credits card on Settings → Billing shows your balance, any credits held for work in progress, and your monthly allowance.

The card tells you three things:
  • Your balance — spendable credits, with the approximate value beside it.
  • Held for in-flight — credits reserved for work happening right now. This only appears when it is above zero. See Holds below.
  • Monthly allowance — how many credits your plan grants, and when they next arrive.

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A conversation is the billing unit

Callivox does not charge per message. It charges per conversation, per 24-hour window. A conversation is one contact on one channel — for example, a single WhatsApp thread with one customer. The first time an AI agent answers in that conversation, Callivox:
  1. Charges the conversation fee for that agent’s effort level, and
  2. Opens a 24-hour window on that conversation.
For the rest of that window, every further AI answer in the same conversation costs nothing. Ten messages or two hundred, over ten minutes or twenty hours — same fee. When the window expires, nothing happens by itself. The next time an AI agent answers in that conversation, a new window opens and the fee is charged again.

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Worked example: one thread over two days

A customer messages your WhatsApp channel. A Medium effort agent is on that channel. Total for the whole two-day thread: 6 credits.

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What is free

None of these open a window or cost a credit:
  • Inbound messages from customers, on any channel
  • Replies typed by your human agents
  • Scripted flow steps — the deterministic parts of a flow agent
  • Sending and receiving messages in general — message delivery itself carries no credit cost
That means a busy inbox staffed by people costs nothing in credits. Only AI answers do.

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Effort tiers

Every AI agent has an effort level — Low, Medium or High — which you set on the agent. Higher effort means the platform uses more capable processing for that agent, and costs more per conversation. The fee is decided by the agent that answered, not by the channel or the customer. If two different agents answer in the same conversation, see below.

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When a higher-effort agent joins mid-window

If a conversation already has an open window and an agent with a higher effort level answers, the window is upgraded to that level and you are charged only the difference. A worked example, on one conversation: Total: 10 credits — the same as if the High agent had answered first. A window is never charged twice for the same level, and never charged down.

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The full rate card

These are the rates on current plans.
The last three lines are listed on the rate card because Callivox can price them individually on custom plans. On the standard plans they are covered by the conversation fee — if a customer sends your AI agent an image or a PDF inside a conversation, or the agent looks something up in one of your connected systems, you pay the conversation fee and nothing more.
Voice calls and knowledge-base ingestion are always charged on top of the conversation fee. They are not covered by the 24-hour window.

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Voice calls

A voice call is charged in two parts:
  • A connect fee of 2 credits, once, when the call connects.
  • A per-minute rate, set by the voice agent’s effort level: 2, 4 or 8 credits a minute.
Minutes are rounded up: a call lasting 2 minutes 10 seconds is charged as 3 minutes. If a customer both calls you and messages you, those are two separate things — the call is charged as above, and the message thread is charged as its own conversation.

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Knowledge-base documents

When you upload a document to a knowledge base, Callivox reads it once and indexes it so your agents can answer from it. That costs 1 credit per 1,000 tokens of text in the document, rounded up. A token is a short piece of text, a bit under a word on average. You pay this once per document, when it is ingested — not every time an agent uses it. Answering from your knowledge base during a conversation costs nothing beyond the conversation fee.

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Holds: credits reserved while work is in flight

Callivox reserves credits before it starts chargeable work, then settles them when the work finishes. This is what Held for in-flight on the Credits card means.
1

Reserve

Before an AI agent starts working, the credits it will need are set aside. Your balance is unchanged, but those credits are no longer spendable by anything else. If you cannot afford them, the work does not start — which means you are never charged for an answer you did not get.
2

Settle

When the work completes, the reserved credits are taken from the balance and a line is written to your ledger.
3

Or release

If the work does not happen, the hold is dropped and nothing is charged.
Holds are short-lived. If one is ever left behind — for example after an interruption — Callivox clears it automatically, so held credits never leak away from your balance.
Your true spendable amount is balance minus held. If a top-up looks like it has not landed, check whether credits are being held for work in progress.

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Worked examples

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A support team on WhatsApp

A team handles 400 WhatsApp conversations a month, all answered by a single Medium effort agent. Most threads run over an hour or two; a handful spill into a second day.
That fits inside the Growth plan’s 5,000 monthly credits with 3,800 left over — which roll over into next month. It also fits inside Starter’s 1,000 credits only if volume drops, so Growth is the safer choice at that level. If 30 of those 400 threads carry on past their 24-hour window and get a second AI answer the next day, add 30 more windows:

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A mixed workspace

An online retailer runs three agents and refreshes its knowledge base once a month. Comfortably inside Growth (5,000 credits). Note how much of the volume is free: only the AI’s first answer in each 24-hour window is charged.

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A voice team

An appointments team runs one Medium effort voice agent, handling 120 calls a month, averaging 3 minutes 20 seconds each — charged as 4 minutes. Voice is the most credit-hungry thing Callivox does. If those same calls ran on a Low effort voice agent, the minutes would cost 120 × 4 × 2 = 960 credits, bringing the total to 1,200.

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Spending less

  • Match effort to the job. Order lookups and FAQs rarely need High effort. Moving a high-volume agent from High to Medium cuts its conversation fee by 70%.
  • Let humans and flows do the routine parts. Scripted flow steps and human replies are free, and a flow agent that only calls on AI when the script runs out costs less than a free-form one.
  • Do not fear long threads. Resolving something fully in one conversation costs the same as answering once. There is no saving in cutting a conversation short.
  • Ingest knowledge bases deliberately. Re-uploading the same document re-ingests it and is charged again, so keep refreshes to what actually changed.

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Where to see what you spent

The Recent activity table on Settings → Billing is your credit ledger. Every grant, purchase and charge appears there, newest first.

Recent activity lists every credit movement with its date, type, amount and reason.

Credits arriving show as monthly refill (your plan’s grant), topup (a purchase) or trial grant. Everything spent shows as a debit.

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Next steps

Top-ups and auto-recharge

Buy more credits, or keep the balance topped up automatically.

Running low and running out

What you are warned about, and exactly what stops at zero.

Plans

Match your monthly credit need to the right plan.

AI agents

Where you set an agent’s effort level.