How do billing and credits work?

Vinci uses a shared USD credit balance across the web app, mobile apps, API, and Vinci Code. Plan credits and purchased credits are added to that same balance.

For current plan options, pricing, and included credits, see Billing & limits.

Free accounts receive credit two ways:

• A monthly top-off. At the start of each month, a Free account's balance is topped up to $5 automatically — no card required. The top-off brings your balance up to $5 (a balance already at or above $5 receives nothing that month), and monthly free credit expires at the end of the calendar month.
• Email verification. Verifying your email grants a one-time $5 credit that lasts 60 days from the day it is granted.

You can see the exact expiry dates for your own credit under Account. Purchased credits have a $10 minimum purchase and never expire. We always spend credit that expires soonest first, so nothing is wasted.

Open Account in the app or the Usage page on the Vinci Platform to review your balance and usage. Usage views cover 7, 30, or 90 days, as well as a custom date range, and you can export the records as CSV.

Auto top-up is optional. If you turn it on, set a monthly cap so additional credit purchases stay within the amount you choose.

To change or cancel your plan, update your payment method, or download invoices and receipts, open Account and choose Manage plan, invoices & receipts on Stripe — this opens Stripe's secure billing portal for your subscription. For refunds or anything the portal doesn't cover, contact support@getsimpledirect.com.

For automated monitoring, usage alerts can send balance_below and monthly_spend_above events to an HTTPS webhook. These alerts do not include conversation content.

If the shared balance reaches zero, the app pauses new requests and the API returns HTTP 402 with budget_exhausted or insufficient_quota. A rate limit is different: it returns HTTP 429 and should be retried after a brief wait.