Features
Credits and usage
How Gluon charges in credits, who pays in groups, what's free, promotional credits, running out, buying credits and the Plan & usage page.
Gluon runs on prepaid credits. 1 credit is $0.001, so $1 buys 1,000 credits. Prices may change; a credit’s value doesn’t. See Prices for what each thing costs.
Who pays
Section titled “Who pays”Everyone pays for their own work, in private chats and in groups:
- You pay for your messages, your mentions of
@Gluon, your scheduled tasks and your forwarded-email requests. - With the auto trigger, the member whose message gets an answer pays for it.
- Nobody pays for anyone else. There are no shared group credits yet.
- Stored files are paid by their owner: your private files by you, a group’s by its current owner.
What costs credits
Section titled “What costs credits”| What | How it’s charged |
|---|---|
| AI replies | What the model costs for each step, plus a markup; bigger models cost more |
| Web search | Per search, at the provider’s cost plus a markup |
| Reading pages that need JavaScript | Per second of browser time |
| Browser | Per second while a browser is open |
| Linux workspace | Per second while it runs |
| Sending email | Per accepted email |
| Storage | Per day, for files, email and workspaces you keep |
| Images Gluon generates | What the image model costs, plus a markup |
Free: every other tool, including the calendar, files, memory, recall and the guide; connector calls; the Just Bash workspace’s running; and Gluon’s own safety checks, such as classifying a new connector’s tools and checking forwarded emails. They still appear in your usage so you can see them. The Auto permission’s review of a single call is charged like a small model call.
Artifacts that call AI charge each person who uses them; see Artifacts.
Promotional credits
Section titled “Promotional credits”Every new member gets 500 promotional credits. They’re spent first and expire after 90 days if unused.
Running out
Section titled “Running out”When your balance reaches zero, Gluon stops starting paid work: replies, paid tools, the Linux workspace and the browser. A reply already running stops with “You’re out of credits”, and an open browser or Linux workspace closes. Free things keep working, including reading your history, downloading files and deleting things.
If Gluon can’t check your balance for a moment, it says “Billing is temporarily unavailable” rather than doing paid work unchecked; try again shortly.
Buying credits
Section titled “Buying credits”Use Buy credits in Settings → Plan & usage, from 1,000 credits at a time. The button only appears where buying is available.
Plan & usage
Section titled “Plan & usage”Settings → Plan & usage shows where your credits go:
| Tab | Shows |
|---|---|
| Overview | Your balance, promotional credits and when they expire, this month’s spend and the costliest chats |
| Usage | Spend over time by product, private or group, trigger and chat |
| Activity | Every charge, filterable; a chat can link here to show its own usage |
| Credits & payments | Credits added and payments made |
Charges are labelled by how they started: Direct (you asked), Scheduled (reminders and tasks), Auto · group (auto-trigger replies) or Auto · email (forwarded requests).
Spending less
Section titled “Spending less”- Keep the default model for everyday work; switch an agent to a bigger model only when you need it. See Agents.
- Start new chats for new topics: long chats send more context with every reply.
- Prefer web fetch over the browser for public pages, and stop browsers you’re done with.