Credit System Explained

preparAItor uses one unified credit balance for every AI action — analyzing a job, analyzing a CV, generating documents, improving your CV in the CV Maker, practicing interviews. There are no separate pools per feature: one number, one currency.

Where You See Your Balance

The app deliberately shows one thing: how many credits you have available right now. You'll find that number in three places:

• Top navigation bar — a small chip with a sparkle icon and your available balance, next to your profile menu (on mobile it's inside the menu drawer). The chip changes color as your balance runs low, and hovering it shows "X credits available".
• Dashboard — the Current Plan card shows Credits Available, any purchased credits, and when your monthly credits reset next.
• Credit Usage page — open your profile menu and choose Credit Usage. This page shows your Credit Balance card, a Credit Costs legend for every action, and your full activity history.

If something is currently processing (say, a document generation in progress), you'll see a note like "100 in pipeline" — those credits are held for the running action and return to your balance if it fails.

What Each Action Costs

You never have to memorize costs: every button that spends credits shows its price as faint "ghost text" inside the button itself — a small sparkle icon and a number next to the label. For example, the Generate button shows ✨ 100, and the job URL analysis button shows ✨ 10. The Credit Costs legend on the Credit Usage page lists them all:

A few charging details worth knowing:

• AI Improve charges when the three variants are generated — whether or not you accept one.
• Match Check, Tailor CV and Translate CV only charge when the run succeeds. A Match Check result stays saved with the job — re-opening it later is free; only re-checking after you change your CV or the job costs again.
• An interview follow-up round (another 15 exchanges targeting your weak areas) costs another 150 credits.
• Every account gets 2 free lifetime interview sessions (1 coaching + 1 practice) on any plan. Beyond those, ongoing Interview Practice requires a Pro or Premium plan, paid from your credit pool at 150 per session.

What's Free

These never touch your balance:

• Editing — fixing extracted CV or job data, and all editing in the CV Maker (sections, templates, colors, layout)
• CV PDF export — exporting your CV from the CV Maker to PDF costs nothing
• Downloading previously generated documents from your history
• Using the Application Tracker, changing settings, and sending feedback

The rule of thumb: AI work costs credits; your own work doesn't.

Monthly Credits

Each plan includes a monthly credit pool:

For scale: one complete application — job analysis (10) + CV analysis (15, first time only) + document generation (100) — costs 125 credits the first time and 110 for each one after, since your analyzed CV is reused.

• The pool resets monthly, even if you pay quarterly or semi-annually. The Free plan resets monthly too.
• Monthly credits don't roll over — unused credits expire at the reset.
• The dashboard's Current Plan card shows a countdown to your next reset, and the reset appears in your usage history as Credits Refilled.

Reserved Credits — and Why Failures Cost Nothing

Long-running actions don't deduct credits the moment you click. Instead:

1. Start — the credits are reserved and shown as "in pipeline". They count against your available balance so you can't spend them twice.
2. Success — the reservation becomes a real deduction.
3. Failure or timeout — the reservation is released back to your balance automatically. Stale reservations expire after about 15 minutes.

You're never charged for a failed operation. One important asymmetry: deleting a completed or in-progress generation does not refund credits — deleting is housekeeping, not cancellation.

Running Low

The app blocks any action you can't afford — there's no overdraft. A button you can't afford is disabled, with a tooltip explaining why (for example, "Not enough credits for URL analysis"). When 20% or less of your credits remain, the dashboard shows a warning with a direct Buy Additional Credits shortcut.

From there you have two options: buy a one-time credit package, or wait for your monthly reset.

Credit Packages (One-Time Top-Ups)

Credit packages are one-time purchases, available to everyone including Free users:

To buy one, open the pricing page and switch to the Credit Packages tab, or use Buy Additional Credits on your dashboard. Pick a package and click Buy Now — payment runs through a standard Stripe checkout, and the credits land on your account immediately.

What makes purchased credits different from monthly ones:

• They never expire — no monthly reset applies.
• They survive plan changes — upgrade, cancel, or drop to Free, and they stay usable (on whatever actions your current plan allows).
• They're spent last. The app always consumes monthly credits first and only dips into purchased credits once the monthly pool is empty — so your expiring credits are used before your permanent ones. Your purchased balance shows separately, e.g. "+600 purchased", on the Credit Usage page.

Reading Your Usage History

The Credit Usage page keeps a full log of where your credits went:

• Filter by activity type: All, Generation, CV Analysis, Job Analysis, or Interview.
• Search by job title, company, or filename to find a specific run.
• Expand an entry to see the details — for a generation that includes the job, the CV used, language, tone, documents produced, plus Credits Used, Balance Before, and Balance After.
• Non-spending events appear too: Credits Refilled (monthly reset), Additional Credits (package purchases), and allowance changes when you switch plans.
• Use Load More at the bottom to page further back.

What Happens When You Change Plans

• Upgrade — the new plan's monthly allowance applies immediately (it replaces the old one; allowances don't stack). Purchased credits are untouched. The change shows in your history as an allowance increase.
• Cancel — you keep your plan's credits until the end of the paid period, then move to the Free allowance. Purchased credits remain.
• Downgrades aren't offered directly — to move to a lower plan, cancel and re-subscribe after your current period ends.

Tips for Stretching Your Credits

• Edit instead of re-analyzing. Fixing extracted data by hand is free; re-uploading a CV costs 15 again.
• Review before you generate. Check the job details and your CV data first — a re-generation costs another 100.
• Prefer AI Improve for small fixes. At 3 credits per field, polishing a few CV bullets is far cheaper than a 45-credit Tailor run.
• Download the editable Word version (Pro/Premium) and make small wording tweaks in Word or Google Docs instead of regenerating.
• Don't fear errors. Failed operations release their reserved credits automatically.

Next Steps

• Subscription Management — Manage your plan, billing, and upgrades
• Generate Application Documents — Put those credits to work