How credits work & what consumes them
Credits are what pay for the handful of actions that cost real money behind the scenes — this is where to learn what spends them and how to keep an eye on your balance.
Your starting balance
Section titled “Your starting balance”When your account is created, it starts with a credit balance already loaded — no card on file required, no subscription to sign up for first, and no setup fee. You’re dropped straight into the dashboard with credits ready to spend from day one.
The four things that spend credits
Section titled “The four things that spend credits”- Capturing a lead — a homeowner finishing the contact step on your online estimator and becoming a lead you can see and follow up with.
- A homeowner Virtual Estimate — a homeowner sending photos and video of their trees through the optional walkthrough after their price reveal.
- A species classification — tapping Classify on a tree in the field app to get a species suggestion from its photos.
- An assistant message — sending a message to the “Ask AI” panel in Settings.
Nothing else on the platform draws down your balance. Everything above is billed the moment it happens — there’s no monthly cap to hit first, and no separate feature to turn on before it starts counting.
When something fails on our side
Section titled “When something fails on our side”If one of these actions fails because of a problem on our end — not because of anything you or the homeowner did — the credit is refunded automatically. You’re only charged for a spend that actually completed.
Where to watch your balance
Section titled “Where to watch your balance”Open Billing to see your current balance and a line-by-line activity history underneath it. Every row shows what it was for and exactly how many credits it changed your balance by — that ledger is the most accurate place to check what your account is actually being charged for each action, since rates can be set individually per account.
What happens when you run out
Section titled “What happens when you run out”Homeowner-facing actions are the ones that stop: once your balance is exhausted, your online estimator won’t take a new quote or a new lead. The homeowner isn’t shown anything about credits or billing — they see only a generic notice that the estimator is temporarily unavailable. Species classification and assistant messages stop too, but that only affects you and your team, not a homeowner mid-visit to your estimator.
What to watch out for
Section titled “What to watch out for”Running your balance all the way to zero doesn’t quietly turn off a settings feature somewhere in the background — it takes your online estimator offline for real homeowners, with no explanation shown to them. If you’re about to run a marketing push or expect a busy week, check your balance first rather than after the fact.
There’s a small cushion below zero before that happens, so one reserve that dips you slightly negative won’t take your estimator offline on the spot. Don’t plan around that cushion, though — treat zero as the real line, and use auto-recharge if you’d rather not watch it manually.