Billing & Plans Documentation

Usage and Credits

Audio Audit runs on credits. Each plan includes a monthly allowance of credits. Both the reports you generate and the audio enhancements you run draw down from that allowance, based on how much audio is processed and what you ask for.

Understanding Credits

Credits are the single billing unit across the whole app.
The headline conversion is 600 credits ≈ 1 hour of standard analysis.
The credits a report uses depend on two things:
- Episode length — longer audio costs more to process.
- Which checks run — each check, and the processing it needs, has its own per-minute rate, so the standard judging the report sets the price. The three built-in standards all cost the same; a custom standard with some checks turned Off costs less, because Off checks aren't charged for. The standard editor shows an estimated cost per hour of audio as you change it.
Every report — and every enhancement job — is billed as at least 10 minutes of audio, even if the file is shorter. This covers the fixed cost of starting up the processing pipeline and moving your file in and out of storage.
A report is charged when it completes. A report that fails processing isn't charged.
Your monthly plan credits reset at the start of each billing cycle and do not roll over — unused credits don't accumulate. Each billing cycle starts on the day of the month your paid plan started, not on the 1st.

Audio Enhancements

Alongside analysis reports, Audio Audit can enhance your audio — reduce background noise, even out levels with compression, normalise loudness to a target, and write clean metadata and cover art. See Enhancing Audio for what each enhancement does and how to choose options. Enhancements are charged in credits too, using the same simple per-audio-minute model as analysis.

Priced per audio-minute, just like a report — longer files cost more.
Pick any combination. Noise reduction, compression, normalisation and metadata run together as a single job, charged once. You're never billed separately for each.
Same 10-minute minimum as a report, covering the fixed cost of spinning up the pipeline and moving your file in and out of storage.
The options don't change the price. A louder or quieter loudness target, a stronger noise-reduction setting, or a different compression amount changes the result, not the credit cost.
Automatic chapters are charged separately, per minute of audio, on top of the enhancement — the price is shown before you start.

As a rough guide, a full clean-up (all four enhancements) costs about the same per minute as a full standard analysis — so enhancing an hour of audio is roughly in line with analysing an hour. Lighter jobs — just metadata, or just loudness normalisation — cost proportionally less. The "How many credits do I need?" calculator on the Pricing page lets you tick the exact enhancements you plan to use and see the credit cost before you commit.

Plans

Plan	Monthly credits	Roughly equivalent to	Podcasts	Team members
Free	600	~1 hour of analysis	1	1
Starter	6,000	~10 hours of analysis	1	1
Pro	30,000	~50 hours of analysis	5	5
Studio	120,000	~200 hours of analysis	20	20

Actual usage varies with episode length and the checks you run, so treat these hour figures as a guide rather than a fixed limit. See the Pricing page for current prices — paid plans can be billed monthly or annually, and prices include VAT. If you need more than Studio offers, get in touch about a custom plan.

The Free plan needs no credit card. Every new account starts on it.
Custom standards — creating and editing your own standards — work on every plan, Free included, up to 10 per workspace.

Plan Limits

Each plan sets how many podcasts a workspace can hold and, for an Organisation, how many team members it can have. The owner counts as one member, and so does everyone you've invited who hasn't joined yet — withdrawing an invite frees the place. Personal workspaces have no team members, so only the podcast limit applies to them.

When a workspace reaches a limit, "Add podcast" or the invite button still appears, but leads to an upgrade prompt instead of the form.
Your current plan's limits are shown under the plan name in Settings → Billing and plans, e.g. "Includes 5 team members · 5 podcasts".
If a workspace ends up over its limits — after a downgrade, say — nothing is removed or locked. You just can't add more until you're back under the limit or upgrade.

Monitoring Usage

View your current usage from:

Dashboard: The "Credits" card shows your balance (with a rough number of hours of standard analysis it covers) and a colour-coded bar of the credits you have left, top-ups included
- 🟢 Green: Up to 70% used
- 🟡 Amber: Over 70% used
- 🔴 Red: Over 90% used
Under the bar, one line shows your monthly allowance and when it renews (or, on Free, when it resets), and each top-up you hold gets its own line with its expiry date.
Settings → Billing and plans: The same credits card, your current plan, the top-up bundles, and a full Credit history of every grant and charge.

Estimating Cost Before You Analyse

The billing page and the Pricing page include a "How many credits do I need?" calculator — set how much audio you publish each month, tick the checks, deliverables and enhancements you plan to use, and it shows your estimated monthly usage and which plan covers it.
The calculator applies the same rules as the actual charge (including the 10-minute minimum), so it won't disagree with what you're billed.
Uploading a file on the Dashboard also shows an Estimated cost before you click "Upload and analyze".

Managing Quotas

Personal workspaces have their own credit balance.
Organisation workspaces share a single balance across all members.
If you're consistently running low, upgrade your plan for a larger monthly allowance — or buy a top-up bundle for a one-off boost (see below).
To make reports cheaper, turn off checks you don't need in a custom standard.

Top-up Bundles

Top-up bundles (also called add-ons) are one-off packs of credits you can buy at any time, on top of your monthly plan allowance. They're ideal for the occasional busier month when you don't want to permanently move to a larger plan.

How Top-ups Work

Buy any time — from "Buy a top-up" in Settings → Billing and plans, or straight from the Pricing page.
They don't reset — unlike your monthly allowance, top-up credits are not cleared at the start of each billing cycle.
They last 12 months — top-up credits stay valid for 12 months from the date of purchase.
They're normally used after your monthly credits — credits are always spent soonest-expiring first, and your monthly plan credits expire when your allowance resets, so they're drawn down before your top-ups. The one exception is a top-up due to expire before your allowance next resets: it's spent first, so it isn't wasted.

When to Buy One

Your usage is spiky rather than steady — the odd busy month rather than a permanent increase.
You've used up this month's plan credits but don't want to wait for the next reset.
You need a bit of extra headroom without committing to a bigger plan.

Top-up credits are shared within a workspace in the same way as plan credits — an organisation's top-ups are available to all members.

Billing and Subscription

Manage billing from Settings → Billing and plans. In an Organisation, only its owners can manage billing.

Subscription Information

View your current subscription details:

Plan name, status and billing period (monthly or yearly)
What the plan includes — its podcast and team member limits
Payment method
Next payment date and amount
A notice if your subscription is set to end at the close of the current billing period

If a payment fails, a warning appears here and on your Dashboard. Paddle retries the payment and your plan stays active meanwhile — use "Update payment method" to keep it.

Managing Your Subscription

Switch plan: Click "Switch plan" (or "Choose a plan" on Free) and pick another plan.
- Upgrades are billed pro-rata for the rest of your current cycle, then at the full amount from the next cycle. Your credits for this cycle go up to the new plan's allowance straight away — credits you've already used this cycle stay used.
- Downgrades are billed at the new, lower price from your next billing date, with no pro-rating. Credits already granted for this cycle aren't taken away, but the new plan's limits apply.
Buy a top-up: Add a one-off credit bundle without changing your plan.
Change payment method: Update card details through Paddle.
Cancel subscription: Stop renewal at the end of the current period. You keep your plan and credits until then; afterwards the workspace moves to the Free plan. Your reports, podcasts, team and custom standards stay, but you can't add more podcasts or team members beyond Free's limits.
Payment history: Download a receipt for each payment.

Workspace Billing

Personal workspaces: Billed to your personal account.
Organisation workspaces: Billed to the Organisation (its owners manage billing).
Credits — both monthly and top-up — are not shared between workspaces. Switch workspace to see and manage each one's balance — with the switcher next to the Audio Audit logo, or the one at the top of the workspace section in Settings.

Frequently Asked Questions

For more billing questions — including how to share credits with a team — see the FAQ section on the Pricing page.

Next Steps

Dashboard Guide — Monitor usage and manage your plan at a glance
Creating Reports — Understand what consumes credits
Standards — Turn off the checks you don't need
Organisations & Teams — Share a workspace and its credits