How Boei counts chatbot credits, what spends them, and what happens when you run out.
How to get there: Go to Account in the top menu to see your current plan and monthly chatbot credit usage.
What Are Chatbot Credits?
Every plan includes a monthly chatbot credit budget. Each AI reply consumes credits based on which AI model your chatbot uses. Faster, cheaper models cost fewer credits per reply, while higher-end reasoning models cost more.
Credits reset on the 1st of each month, and any unused credits do not roll over.
What Spends Credits
Credits are only deducted when Boei calls an AI model on your behalf. The most common cases:
- AI replies to visitors. Each AI message generated for a visitor consumes credits according to the model you selected in your chatbot settings.
- Lead extraction. When the chatbot collects a lead (name, email, etc.) it uses a small, cheap model in the background to parse the visitor's answer.
- Handoff summary on escalation. When a conversation escalates to a live agent and you have the AI Summary feature on your plan, the chatbot generates a short summary of the conversation as an internal note for the agent. This costs roughly one credit per escalation.
What Does NOT Spend Credits
These actions are free and never count against your monthly budget:
- Visitor messages while waiting in the live chat queue
- Messages between a visitor and a human agent (in either direction)
- Saved replies sent by an agent
- The widget loading, the opening message, quick-button text, and form fields
- Reading and exporting conversations from the inbox
Live Chat Only Mode
If your chatbot is set to Live Chat Only (Setup → Chatbot → Live chat tab → "Live Chat Only"), the AI never replies to visitors. The bot routes every new conversation straight to your agents.
In this mode:
- Visitor messages never spend credits. They flow directly to your live chat queue.
- You will not see "low credits" errors blocking visitors from reaching your team, even if your monthly credit budget is at zero.
- The only AI cost is the handoff summary (roughly one credit per escalation), and only if AI Summary is included in your plan.
This means a Live Chat Only chatbot can operate normally even on plans with a small monthly credit budget. The credits are essentially only used for the optional agent summary.
See Skip AI Routing for how to configure this mode and when it makes sense.
What Happens When You Run Out
If your account hits its monthly credit limit and you do not have a custom overage agreement:
- Pure AI chatbots: New visitor messages are blocked with a "currently unavailable" notice in the widget until credits reset or you upgrade.
- Chatbots with live chat enabled (AI + Live Chat): Visitors are still blocked from getting AI replies. They can still reach a human if they explicitly click the "Live Chat" button (if you have one configured) and the bot escalates without an AI summary.
- Live Chat Only chatbots: Visitors continue to reach your agents normally. The handoff summary is automatically skipped so the conversation is not interrupted. Agents still get notified of the new chat as usual; they just won't see the AI-generated summary at the top of the thread.
You will also receive a warning email when your account crosses the 90% threshold so you can decide whether to upgrade before hitting the cap.
Tips for Managing Credits
- Choose the right AI model. Cheaper models (Haiku, Gemini Flash) cost a fraction of premium models per reply. If your knowledge base is well-trained, a cheaper model often performs just as well.
- Use Live Chat Only for sales-first chatbots. If your goal is always to route to a human, switch to Live Chat Only so visitor messages don't consume credits.
- Watch the monthly usage in Account. The progress bar shows how fast you're burning credits and whether you need to upgrade before month-end.
- Train your knowledge base. A well-trained chatbot answers in fewer turns, which means fewer credits per conversation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does my agent's reply cost credits?
No. Anything sent by a human agent is free, regardless of channel.
Does the AI summary still run if I'm over my limit?
No. To protect you from going further over the limit, the summary is automatically skipped when your account is at or over its monthly credit budget. The conversation still escalates and your agents are still notified.
Do widget views or page impressions cost credits?
No. Credits only count AI calls.
Can I buy extra credits mid-month?
Upgrading your plan immediately raises your monthly limit. Talk to support if you need a one-off top-up or invoice-based billing.
Why did I get a "low credits" warning when my bot is Live Chat Only?
This was an older behavior. Live Chat Only chatbots are now excluded from the credit gate and the 90% warning emails because they don't deduct credits for visitor replies. If you still see the warning, check whether you have any other chatbots on the same account that are running AI mode.