Credit Management

StarZero Agents uses a credit system to manage usage. Understanding how credits work helps you get the most value from your account.

What Consumes Credits?

Credits are used for two main categories of activity:

AI Operations

Every time StarZero Agents's AI does work — searching your library, analyzing content, responding to your messages — it uses a small amount of credits. These costs are relatively modest and are tracked per chat session.

High-Quality Renders

Rendering your final video in high quality (full resolution, no watermark) is the biggest credit expense. The cost scales with the length of your video — a 2-minute render costs more than a 30-second one.

What's Free?

Low-quality preview renders are always free. They render at 480p with a watermark, but they let you check your work without spending anything. Use them as often as you like.

Checking Your Balance

Click the gear icon next to the message input to open the Chat Settings popover. Your credits available and credits used this session are shown in the stats tiles, and a credits usage bar gives you a visual overview of your account balance. The bar changes color as you use more credits — amber when you're getting low, red when you're nearly out. When your usage is critically high, the gear icon itself pulses to draw your attention even when the popover is closed.

Click the info icon next to the credits bar to see a breakdown of your individual credit allocations, including how many credits remain in each and when they expire.

StarZero Agents will always ask you to confirm before starting a high-quality render, so you won't accidentally spend credits.

Session Statistics

The Chat Settings popover shows a summary of your session's usage — including how many messages were sent, how many tools were used, and how many credits were consumed. Your available account balance is displayed alongside the session cost, so you always know where you stand.

Credits Breakdown

Expand Session breakdown in the Chat Settings popover to see a detailed pie chart showing where your credits went. Each slice represents a category of activity:

• Conversational — back-and-forth messages with the AI
• Search — searching your content library
• Analysis — analyzing clips and transcripts
• Editing — timeline edits, reframing, and other project changes
• Rendering — final video renders
• Planning — task planning and to-do lists
• Video/GFX generation — generating images, SVGs, or video clips
• Audio/VO generation — voiceovers, music, and sound effects
• Web Research — web searches and page fetches
• Visualization — charts and visual displays
• Project QA — automatic quality checks

This breakdown helps you understand which parts of your workflow are most credit-intensive, so you can adjust your approach if needed.

Strategies for Efficiency

Preview Before You Finalize

The single best way to manage credits is to iterate with free low-quality previews. Render a preview, watch it, make changes, preview again. Only request a high-quality render when you're confident the video is exactly how you want it.

Be Specific in Searches

Targeted searches are more efficient than broad ones. Instead of multiple rounds of vague queries, spend a moment crafting a specific description of what you're looking for. One precise search is cheaper (and faster) than five vague ones.

Use /search for Quick Browsing

The /search command is great for quick scans through your library. If you just need to browse what's available or find something simple, /search is more efficient than a full conversational search.

Plan Your Project

Before you start chatting, decide what you want to create. Knowing your target duration, aspect ratio, and general structure upfront means less back-and-forth with the AI, which means fewer credits used.

Batch Your Changes

If you need to make several adjustments, describe them all at once rather than one at a time. Instead of five separate messages to adjust five clips, send one message describing all the changes.

Storage Limits

Your plan includes a storage allowance measured in hours of video. When you upload or import media for podcast clip creation, StarZero Agents shows how much storage the video will use alongside the credit cost.

If you're running low on storage, you'll see a warning with an Upgrade button. If you've exceeded your storage limit, the warning tells you by how much. Upgrading your plan gives you more storage — visit app.starzero.ai/pricing to see the options.

Free Plan Clip Limits

On the free plan, podcast clip generation is capped at 5 clips per run. If you set a higher clip count, you'll see a prompt to reduce it or upgrade. On the results page, free users can watch the first 2 clips — the rest are locked behind an upgrade prompt. Upgrading removes both limits.

What Happens When Credits or Storage Run Low?

StarZero Agents checks your credit balance and storage before you start work. If either is too low to continue, a warning will appear showing what's needed and a link to upgrade. This applies to:

• Sending chat messages — the AI needs a minimum credit balance to process your request
• Rendering videos — both "Export without watermark" and "Render without watermark" require sufficient credits. If your balance is too low, a prompt will appear with a link to upgrade
• Starting recipes — recipes require enough credits to complete the full workflow
• Creating podcast clips — clip generation needs sufficient credits and storage for the source media. The credit requirement scales with the number of clips you request — more clips means more credits. If you enable AI Decide, the requirement covers the maximum number of clips the AI might produce
• Uploading or importing media — you'll see both the credit and storage cost before confirming

You won't lose any work — your projects, chat history, and renders are all preserved. Dismiss the warning and come back later, or click Upgrade to increase your limits at app.starzero.ai/pricing.

Credit-Saving Cheat Sheet

Situation	Credit-Saving Approach
Checking if a cutdown looks right	Render a free low-quality preview
Testing focus hints for portrait	Preview in low quality first
Trying different clip arrangements	Use the visual editor (no render needed)
Searching for a specific scene	Use a precise, detailed description
Creating multiple versions	Save versions, preview each, only render the winner in high quality
Verifying caption placement	Include captions in your free preview render