Credits System

Credits are Alphio's usage currency. Three sub-types with a fixed deduction order.

Find it at: /account/usage (balance + ledger) and /top-up-credits (buy).

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1. The 3 Credit types

Every Credit you hold belongs to one of three sub-types. They differ in how they're granted, when they expire, and whether they roll over.

Type	How granted	Expires	Rolls over
Monthly Credits	Refreshed on each billing cycle by your subscription tier (Free / Base / Pro / Elite)	At the end of the billing cycle	No — unused Monthly Credits are lost
Recharge Credits	Bought à la carte via Custom Credits on /top-up-credits	Never	Yes — accumulate indefinitely
Limited-time Credits	Granted by promo, referral, leaderboard, quest, check-in, or survey rewards	On a fixed date set when granted	No — expire on the set date

The balance displayed on /account/usage always shows the three types broken out, so you know exactly which pool funds your next call.

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2. Deduction order

Alphio deducts Credits in a fixed order, regardless of what's consuming them:

Limited-time → Monthly → Recharge.

This order is designed to:

1. Consume expiring Credits first, so promo / reward grants don't go to waste.
2. Then consume the monthly grant that resets at cycle end.
3. Only touch the long-lived Recharge balance last, since it never expires.

Example. You're on Pro with this balance: 200 Limited-time (expires next week), 5,000 Monthly, 3,000 Recharge. You run a research task that costs 800 Credits.

• The first 200 come from Limited-time (now 0).
• The next 600 come from Monthly (now 4,400).
• Recharge is untouched (still 3,000).

If you'd instead run a 6,000-Credit task: 200 Limited-time + 5,000 Monthly + 800 Recharge would all be drawn down, leaving 0 / 0 / 2,200.

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3. Tracking your balance

/account/usage is the canonical view:

• Balance — current total plus per-bucket breakdown (Monthly / Recharge / Limited-time), via the points-balance endpoint.
• Bucket detail — every Limited-time and Recharge bucket listed with its grant date, expiry date, and remaining balance, via the points-buckets endpoint.
• Daily usage chart — aggregated daily consumption with a "Use Credits" totals card, via the daily-usage endpoint.
• Ledger — every deduction and grant event, paginated by month, via the points-ledger endpoint.

The ledger is the source of truth for "what did I spend Credits on" — every chat turn, task run, deep research, and signal access shows up as a separate row.

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4. Earning Credits

Beyond your subscription grant and Custom Credits purchases, you can earn Credits through the Rewards system:

• Daily Check-In streaks
• Trade & Earn milestones
• Quest Center completion
• Referral commissions
• Leaderboard prizes
• Survey rewards

All Rewards-granted Credits land as Limited-time Credits with a fixed expiry.

See /rewards/overview for the full list.

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5. Buying Credits

To buy Credits outside the subscription cycle, open /top-up-credits. Custom Credits land as Recharge Credits and roll over indefinitely.

Custom Credits require a paid subscription (Base / Pro / Elite). Free users get a paywall pointing to /account/subscribe.

A dedicated Custom Credits deep-dive page lives in Phase 2.

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6. What consumes Credits

Alphio deducts Credits across these usage categories:

• Chat queries — each turn with Alphio AI, scaled by model and context size
• Task runs — async Alphio AI jobs (research, monitoring, scheduled analysis)
• Deep research — multi-step research workflows
• Signal access — accessing Signals product output (where applicable to your tier)
• Agentic Trading planning — plan generation and re-planning cycles

warning

Exact per-action Credit costs (per chat turn, per task, per signal call) are being finalized and may change. The in-app cost preview shown before a heavy action is authoritative — always go by that.