# How AI Billing Works in TagoIO: AI Credits and the AI Wallet

> AI billing in TagoIO runs on prepaid AI Credits managed in the AI Wallet. Learn how credits are spent, tracked, capped per profile, and when they expire.

![How AI Billing Works in TagoIO: AI Credits and the AI Wallet](https://tago.io/og/blog/how-ai-billing-works-in-tagoio.png)

Your team is building dashboards and answering questions about its devices with help from AI, and that usage has a cost. The question is where that cost lives and how you keep it under control. In TagoIO, AI billing runs on AI Credits: prepaid funds on your account that pay for AI models by usage, managed from one place in the Admin called the AI Wallet.

This guide covers what AI Credits pay for, how to track and cap AI spend, when credits expire, and how billing changes on a dedicated [TagoDeploy](https://tago.io/deploy) instance.

![The Budget tab of the AI Wallet in the TagoIO Admin: the credit balance with View history and Top up, the automatic top-up threshold and amount, and a monthly spend cap for each profile.](https://tago.io/images/blog/how-ai-billing-works-in-tagoio/ai-wallet-budget.webp)

## What is the AI Wallet in TagoIO?

The AI Wallet is the billing and usage view for AI inside the TagoIO Admin. It holds your prepaid AI Credits, shows your current balance and currency, and records every movement on the account: purchases, spending, expirations, and adjustments issued by TagoIO support. The balance belongs to the account, not to a profile, so every profile draws from it. Because the wallet sits in the Admin, you manage AI costs in the same panel where your team builds.

## What do AI Credits pay for in an IoT app?

AI Credits pay for the paid models in the TagoIO AI model catalog, charged by usage. Each request to a paid model debits your balance based on the model price and the size of the request. Those models run behind the [TagoAI](https://tago.io/ai) features: the chat in the Admin, AI Dashboard generation, and AI Chat in your TagoRUN portals.

Credits are separate from your TagoIO plan, so your plan and your AI spend stay on different meters. One model stays free: each profile gets a monthly allowance of free-model requests based on its plan, and the free model never draws from your balance. A profile that uses its own AI provider skips your credits entirely.

## How do you track AI Credits usage?

AI usage statistics show which profile spent what, and where: spend and request counts by profile, by model, and by feature, over hours, days, or months. Free and own-provider requests appear there too, with a spend of zero, so total activity sits next to what it costs.

The wallet shows how credits entered and left the account. At a glance you can read the current balance, how many purchases still hold unspent credits, and the date the next batch expires, and every purchase, spending debit, expiration, and support adjustment lands in the history. You can trace AI spend without exporting anything or stitching together invoices.

## What happens when AI Credits run low?

Top up manually from the wallet, or switch on automatic top-up so the balance refills on its own. Each purchase runs from 10.00 to 1000.00 in your wallet currency, charged to the default card on your account. A service fee is added to the card charge rather than to your balance, and the Admin shows the current rate before you confirm.

For automatic top-up, you set a threshold and an amount. When the balance drops below the threshold, TagoIO schedules a purchase for the amount you chose. A background check runs every few minutes, so a top-up lands shortly after the balance dips, not at the exact moment of the request that crossed the line. A request that arrives before the top-up lands can still fail for insufficient credits, so leave some headroom in the threshold. Keep a valid card on the account so top-ups go through: a failed charge leaves the balance where it is, and TagoIO does not email you about it.

## How do you control AI spend across a team?

Set an optional monthly spend cap on each profile. Without one, a profile shows Unlimited and can spend the whole account balance. The cap limits how much one profile can spend in a calendar month, counted in UTC, and it resets at the start of each month. When a profile reaches its cap, its requests to paid models are refused until the month rolls over or you raise the cap. Caps do not carve out part of the balance: every profile still draws from the same account balance.

You also decide which models each profile runs. Under Profile Settings, then AI models, you set the default model for the chat, AI Dashboard generation, and TagoRUN. Turn on Curate the menu to limit which models chat users can pick, for example the free model and one catalog model, so a profile only touches the models you intend it to use.

## Do AI Credits expire?

Yes. Credits expire one year after the purchase that created them. Spending always uses the credits closest to expiration first, so your oldest credits leave the wallet before newer ones. Expired credits show up in the history and are not refundable, which is a good reason to size automatic top-up to your real usage rather than buying a large balance you cannot spend in a year.

## Can you use your own AI provider instead?

Yes. A profile can run its own AI provider in place of the TagoIO catalog: OpenAI, Anthropic, AWS Bedrock, Google Gemini, or OpenRouter, connected under Profile Settings, then Services, then AI Provider. That provider bills you directly, and those requests do not touch your AI Credits or count against a spend cap. The free model is the exception: it still runs on the TagoIO side and counts against its monthly allowance.

## How does AI billing work on TagoDeploy?

TagoDeploy has no AI Credits balance. On a dedicated instance, paid-model usage runs on the instance's own AI provider credentials and is priced from the instance catalog for metering and cap enforcement. TagoIO bills nothing for that usage; the instance's provider account pays for it. Usage reporting and per-profile spend caps still apply, measured against the catalog value.

## AI Credits FAQ

**How are AI Credits different from my TagoIO plan?**

They sit on separate meters. Your plan covers the platform, including the free model's monthly request allowance; AI Credits cover paid-model usage, billed by consumption.

**Which currency do AI Credits use?**

USD or EUR, fixed when the wallet is created based on your account region: USD for US accounts, EUR for EU accounts. TagoIO does no currency conversion, so prices, purchases, caps, and charges all use that one currency.

**Does the free model use credits?**

No. The free model runs on a monthly request allowance set by the profile's plan and never draws from your balance.

**What if an automatic top-up charge fails?**

The balance stays put, requests to paid models fail once the balance cannot cover them, and automatic top-up retries on later checks. No email is sent and the failed charge does not appear in the history, so keep a valid card on the account.

The full reference, including each error message and what to do about it, is in the [AI Credits guide](https://docs.tago.io/docs/tagoio/tago-ai/ai-credits).

[llms.txt](https://tago.io/llms.txt)