> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.9pic.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Manage Credits

> The Credits page on Pay As You Go — balance, monthly usage, and transaction history

## Why This Matters

The Credits page is your operational dashboard on Pay As You Go. Five minutes here once a month tells you how much you spent, where it went, and whether your top-up cadence still makes sense. This page walks through every section.

## Open the Credits Page

From the sidebar, click **Credits**. The page has three sub-tabs:

| Tab                        | What's there                                                                      |
| -------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Credits**                | Available balance, monthly usage summary, credit usage history, purchase history. |
| **Subscription**           | Your plan badge ("Pay As You Go") and plan description.                           |
| **Billing & Transactions** | Payment records, invoice downloads, recheck stuck payments.                       |

<Frame caption="Pay As You Go Credits page">
  <img src="https://assets.9pic.ai/docs/pay-as-you-go-guide/manage-credits-dashboard.webp" alt="Credits page on a Pay As You Go account showing the Credits, Billing and Transactions, and Subscription tabs, plus the Available Credits card" />
</Frame>

## Section 1 — Available Credits

The big number at the top is your **Available Credits** balance. That's the number of photos you can process with AI search enabled before processing pauses.

### Show / Hide cost per credit

Click **Show** next to **Cost per Credit** to reveal what each credit costs in your account currency. The dashboard reads this from your account configuration. If it ever changes, the dashboard reflects the new number before your next invoice.

<Tip>
  If you regularly compare credit cost to your event ticket price (or your client's photo-package price), keep Show on. Otherwise leave it Hidden.
</Tip>

### Purchase Credits and View Billing buttons

Two action buttons sit below the balance:

* **Purchase Credits** → opens the top-up flow. See [Buy More Credits](/pay-as-you-go-guide/buy-more-credits).
* **View Billing** → jumps to **Credits → Billing & Transactions**. See [Invoices & Transactions](/pay-as-you-go-guide/invoices).

## Section 2 — Monthly Usage Summary

Below the balance card, the **Monthly Usage Summary** shows four cards: the current month and the previous three months.

| Per-card field         | What it tells you                                                                                 |
| ---------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Usage**              | Total credits consumed this month. The biggest number, in red, is your real spend.                |
| **Usage transactions** | How many separate processing actions ran this month (each Process Photos run is one transaction). |
| **Current** badge      | Marks the month-in-progress, so you don't compare it 1:1 with finished months.                    |

The card highlighted with the **Current** badge is the running total — it grows through the month.

### What the trend tells you

| Pattern across the 4 months       | What it likely means                   | Action                                                                                                                 |
| --------------------------------- | -------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Flat usage, low transaction count | Steady event cadence, sized correctly. | Stay on Pay As You Go.                                                                                                 |
| Steadily growing usage            | More events or larger events.          | Re-read [When to Upgrade](/pay-as-you-go-guide/when-to-upgrade) to check if Pro economics now beat per-credit pricing. |
| One spike month, otherwise flat   | One unusually large event.             | Open Credit Usage below to identify the event; nothing structural to change.                                           |
| Empty months                      | Off-season.                            | Top up only before your next event; credits don't expire.                                                              |

## Section 3 — Credit Usage Tab

Below the monthly summary, the **Credit Usage** tab lists every individual usage transaction (every photo-processing run that consumed credits).

| Column       | What it means                                                                                                                               |
| ------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Type**     | Always **Usage** for this tab. The pop-out info icon shows the underlying usage type — typically "Photo Processing" or "AI Image Rotation". |
| **Credits**  | Negative number — credits spent.                                                                                                            |
| **Event**    | The event name; click to jump to that event's details.                                                                                      |
| **Event ID** | The numeric event ID, useful when filing support tickets.                                                                                   |
| **User**     | The account that triggered the processing run, or **System** for automated runs.                                                            |
| **Date**     | When the run happened.                                                                                                                      |

Use this tab to answer "*where did my credits go?*" The big spend month from the summary cards always traces back to one or two events here.

## Section 4 — Purchase History Tab

The **Purchase History** tab lists every credit addition: paid top-ups, free credits, refunds, admin grants.

| Column      | What it means                                                                                                                                        |
| ----------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Type**    | **Purchase** for paid top-ups, **Free Credits** for trial-era credits, **Admin Grant** for staff-applied credits, **Refund** for any credit returns. |
| **Credits** | Positive number — credits added.                                                                                                                     |
| **Event**   | Usually empty for top-ups (top-ups aren't tied to a specific event).                                                                                 |
| **Date**    | When the credit was added.                                                                                                                           |

The pop-out info icon on each row shows payment metadata: gateway, payment ID, order ID. Use this when reconciling a top-up against your bank statement or asking support to look up a transaction.

## Section 5 — Subscription Tab

Click the **Subscription** sub-tab to see:

* Your **Current Plan** badge — should read **Pay As You Go**.
* The plan description — *"Flexible usage-based pricing with no commitment."*
* **Subscription Expiry** — Pay As You Go has no expiry, so this section reads *"No expiry date set. Your plan does not have a fixed expiry."* Don't worry about it.

If the badge ever reads something other than "Pay As You Go" when you expect it to, contact [support@9pic.ai](mailto:support@9pic.ai).

## Section 6 — Billing & Transactions Tab

The **Billing & Transactions** tab is for downloading invoices and rechecking stuck payments. It has its own page in this guide — see [Invoices & Transactions](/pay-as-you-go-guide/invoices).

## A Suggested Monthly Routine

If you want a habit that takes 5 minutes:

<Steps>
  <Step title="On the first of the month, open Credits">
    Look at the previous month's card in **Monthly Usage Summary**. That's your spend.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Compare to event count">
    Mentally check: does the spend match how many events you ran? If it's higher than expected, scan the **Credit Usage** tab for outliers.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Plan the next top-up">
    If next month has a known big event, top up now (minimum 1,000 credits). See the recommended sizes in [Photo Processing Costs](/pay-as-you-go-guide/photo-processing-costs#how-to-estimate-before-you-sync).
  </Step>

  <Step title="Once a quarter, sanity-check the Pro math">
    Open [When to Upgrade](/pay-as-you-go-guide/when-to-upgrade) and run the comparison.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Common Questions

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Why does my balance look like a single number across all events?">
    Credits are an organisation-level balance, not per-event. Every event in the organisation draws from the same pool. The **Credit Usage** tab attributes each spend back to a specific event so you can see where it went.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="What's the difference between Usage and Purchase tabs?">
    **Usage** = credits spent (negative). **Purchase History** = credits added (positive). Both are filtered views of the same underlying transaction list.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Can my operators see the Credits page?">
    They can see the balance and usage history, but only **admins** can buy credits. The **Purchase Credits** button is hidden for non-admins.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="The Monthly Usage Summary shows the current month as low — is something wrong?">
    No. The current month is in-progress and grows through the month. Compare it only to the same point in previous months, or wait until month-end for an apples-to-apples comparison.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="My free credits from the trial show up here — are those still usable?">
    Yes. Free credits granted during the trial combine with paid credits into a single **Available Credits** balance. The dashboard spends them in order; you don't have to choose.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Next Steps

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Buy More Credits" icon="cart-shopping" href="/pay-as-you-go-guide/buy-more-credits">
    The top-up walkthrough.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Invoices & Transactions" icon="file-invoice" href="/pay-as-you-go-guide/invoices">
    Download invoices and recheck stuck payments.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Avoid Credit Foot-Guns" icon="triangle-exclamation" href="/pay-as-you-go-guide/avoid-credit-foot-guns">
    The mistakes that quietly burn the most credits.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Credits Reference" icon="book" href="/dashboard-guide/credits">
    Full Dashboard Guide reference for the Credits dashboard.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>