Usage credit and auto-recharge

Usage credit is a dollar balance your team adds in advance. It pays for three things only:

Usage credit never pays for your plan subscription, which is billed separately. Adding credit does not extend, prepay or upgrade your plan, and does not raise any plan limit such as submissions, API calls, storage or published forms. To pay less per month for your plan, switch to yearly billing on the plans page.

This page was called Credit balance until October 2026.

Open the Usage credit page

• Team menu > Plan and Billing > the Usage credit box > Add usage credit (paid plans).
• Team menu > Usage > Add credit.
• The plans page: Need more than your plan includes? > Add usage credit (also on the Free plan and during the trial).

The page opens for the team owner and for members with Billing management or Usage viewer access on Team Members. Adding credit and changing any setting on the page needs Billing management (the team owner always has it). Without it the controls are greyed out and the page says “Billing access is required to add credit.”

Settings on the page save as soon as you change them.

Add credit

1. Under Add usage credit, pick $10, $25, $50 or $100, or type Other amount. One top-up is $10 to $1,000.
2. Click the button, for example Add $25.
3. If no card is saved yet, a secure payment page opens. After you pay, the card is saved for later top-ups and auto-recharge. If a card is saved, it is charged at once.

The page then shows the new balance. Each top-up has a Receipt link under Transactions, and appears under Invoices and receipts on Plan and Billing.

To save a card without paying, click Save a card (or Change card to replace it).

Credit is in US dollars, does not expire, is not refundable and stays with the team.

Turn on auto-recharge

Auto-recharge charges the saved card so the balance never runs out. It is off by default and needs a saved card.

When the balance drops below the threshold, the saved card is charged the amount to add, as long as the recharge still fits under the monthly limit for the calendar month.

• If a charge fails, the team owner gets “PlatoForms: auto-recharge payment failed” and no new try is made for 24 hours. After two failures in a row, auto-recharge switches itself off. Update the card, then turn it on again.
• When the monthly limit leaves no room for another recharge, the owner gets “PlatoForms: monthly auto-recharge limit reached”. Auto-recharge resumes next month.
• When auto-recharge is off and the balance drops below the threshold, the owner gets “PlatoForms: your balance is running low”, at most once a day.

Choose what the balance pays for

Under What the balance pays for:

• SMS messages are always paid from the balance. A text the balance cannot cover is not sent.
• AI: Pause stops AI at your plan’s allowance until the next usage period. Pay from balance keeps AI working and charges the balance.
• Address lookups: Pause turns address fields into plain text inputs once the quota is used. Pay from balance keeps suggestions working and charges the balance.

AI and address usage beyond the plan is added up during the day and charged to the balance once a day. Because of this, the balance can go below $0.00. While the balance is $0.00 or below, AI and address lookups pause at the plan allowance again and texts are not sent, until you add credit.

What AI cost is shown on Usage > AI > From your credit balance. See AI credits.

Transactions

Transactions lists the latest 100 movements, newest first: top-ups, auto-recharges, charges for SMS, AI and address autocomplete, refunds and adjustments, with the balance after each. A text that failed is refunded. Use the filters to show only top-ups, SMS, AI or address lookups.

Troubleshooting