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AI Credits in a Consumer App: Say the Number on the Paywall
CodeLoop Studio ·
Every AI feature in a consumer app costs money per call. You can hide that behind the word “unlimited” and buy a month of goodwill, or you can put the number on the paywall and keep the year.
RoomFit takes the second option. AI Style Checks are credits: 1 in total on Free, 20 a month on Pro Yearly, 100 in total on Pro Lifetime, with extra packs in the App Store. The app says “credits, not unlimited” where a buyer can see it before paying.
Why not just meter it quietly?
Because silent throttling looks like a bug. A user who bought Pro and hits an invisible ceiling files a refund and a review, and both are more expensive than the honest sentence you skipped. Stated limits also stop your own team from shipping a feature whose unit economics nobody checked.
Two different meters, for two different costs
Daily limits for cheap-but-abusable work. AR visuals reset every 24 hours — 3 a day on Free, 50 on Yearly, 100 on Lifetime. Unused allowance does not roll over, which keeps the ceiling meaningful.
Credits for real per-call spend. A Style Check hits a model, so it is a counted balance, not a rate limit.
Free has to be genuinely useful. All the core tools — AR, Will It Fit, TV planner, paint, rug and wall art, Match — plus one Style Check, so the free tier sells the paid one instead of resenting it.
Top-ups as consumables. 10 checks for $1.99, 30 for $4.99, 100 for $11.99 — the escape hatch for the user who needs more this weekend, not a second subscription.
Lifetime is the tier where “unlimited AI” would eventually be a loss you cannot price out of — the reasoning is in lifetime versus subscription on StoreKit.
Decide what runs locally first
The cheapest credit is the one you never spend. RoomFit's basic colour and contrast matching runs on the device, so the paid model is reserved for the questions that need it — on-device first, cloud on request.
Same conversation we have on client projects: an AI feature is a running cost, and it has to appear in the plan next to hosting. That is part of custom software development here, and it is why we keep the honest version of maintenance and running costs on the table early.
Have an AI feature you are unsure how to price? Contact us or send scope through the online estimate.