Your community's AI features run on an AI allowance from your platform plan. This article explains how AI usage is counted, what happens when it runs out, how to buy on-demand AI credits, and where to track usage.
Who can do this: Owners buy credits and manage the wallet. Owners and admins can view AI Copilot usage pages. Billing admins can view Plan & Usage. · Where: Web (admin console) and the creator dashboard. · Plan: Your AI allowance, the per-member daily limit, and whether on-demand credits are offered depend on your platform plan.
How AI usage is counted
AI usage is counted in requests, not tokens. Each question to the AI assistant, each AI writing action, and each AI course outline or quiz draft counts as a request, however long the answer is and whatever answer scope the member picks.
Two limits apply:
- Monthly allowance (Monthly Quota): a pool of AI requests for your whole community. Every member's AI assistant questions, AI Actions (including AI Enhance), AI Writing Completion, and AI course outlines draw from it. It resets at the start of each month.
- Per-member daily limit: how many AI requests each member can make per day, across the same features. It resets daily.
Depending on your plan, either limit can be Unlimited. AI moderation doesn't count toward your AI allowance.
AI course outlines also have their own daily cap per person, on top of the two limits above. A generation that fails still counts.
Check your community's AI allowance
- Admin → AI Copilot → Overview: the Monthly Quota card shows requests used against your limit, what's remaining, and when it Resets, or Unlimited quota. The Per-Member Daily Limit card shows the limit in requests / day, or Unlimited with the note Members have no daily request limit.
- Admin → Billing → Plan & Usage: the AI requests / month row shows usage against your plan. See Check plan usage and limits.
- Admin → Billing → Add-ons (owners only): the AI Copilot card shows your Plan quota and On-demand balance.
What happens when AI usage runs out
A member reaches their daily limit. The AI chat shows "You've reached today's AI limit" with the reset date, and the message box shows AI quota exhausted... until the limit resets. In the Mateflow app, the member sees Daily AI limit reached. Enhance with AI shows how many requests are left today. On-demand credits don't raise the daily limit.
The community uses up its monthly allowance. If you have on-demand AI credits, AI keeps working and draws from them, and the AI Copilot card on Add-ons shows Past your plan quota — now using on-demand. Without credits, AI requests stop until the allowance resets: members get a message saying the community has used up its monthly AI quota, or Community AI limit reached in the app. If your plan offers credits, the card then shows On-demand depleted.
Buy on-demand AI credits
On-demand credits (AI add-ons) add AI requests on top of your plan. They're used only after the monthly allowance runs out, and they roll over and don't expire. Only the community owner can buy them; other roles see Owner access required.
- Go to Admin → Billing → Add-ons. The page is called Add-ons & on-demand.
- Optional: to pay from a prepaid balance, click Add funds on the Wallet balance card, choose an amount, and click Continue to payment.
- On the AI Copilot card, click Buy credits and choose a pack.
- Choose Pay from balance or Pay by card, then click Buy.
- If Admin verification required appears, re-enter your admin password.
Click History on the wallet card to see top-ups and purchases. If the card says On-demand AI top-ups aren't included in your current plan., your plan doesn't offer AI credits. See Buy add-ons and top up your wallet.
In the creator dashboard, Dashboard (app.mateflow.com) → Billing lists each community's wallet balance and on-demand spend under AI & storage add-ons.
Turn on auto-recharge for AI credits
Auto-recharge buys another credit pack when your balance runs low, up to a monthly cap.
- On the AI Copilot card, click Auto-recharge.
- Turn on Enable auto-recharge.
- Set Buy when balance falls below, choose a Pack to buy, and enter a Monthly spending cap (required).
- Click Save.
Auto-recharge pays from your wallet, so keep the wallet funded.
How your own AI provider (BYOK) changes AI usage
If your community uses its own AI provider key (bring your own key, BYOK), your provider bills you directly. Setting up your own provider isn't available in the admin console right now; this section describes what changes for communities that already use one.
- The monthly allowance doesn't apply. The Monthly Quota card shows Not applicable — you're using your own provider, so platform quota doesn't apply.
- On-demand credits don't apply. The AI Copilot card shows On-demand doesn't apply — your community uses its own AI provider (BYOK). Credits you already bought are kept for when you switch back.
- The per-member daily limit still applies.
- The Usage page shows estimated costs. Check your provider's console for actual billing.
Track AI usage on the Usage page
Admin → AI Copilot → Usage opens AI Usage Statistics:
- Total Requests (All time), This Week (Last 7 days), and This Month (This calendar month). With BYOK, Cost This Month also appears.
- Under Trend & breakdown, choose Last 7 days, Last 30 days, or Last 90 days to see the Daily Trend of requests and tokens, Usage by Feature, and Usage by Provider.
- A Moderation row in Usage by Feature links to Admin → Moderation → AI Activity.
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