How video ad credits work (and how to spend them well)

Credits map directly to compute. Writing and analysis are cheap; rendering video is where the cost sits. Every render shows its exact credit cost before it starts, and costs vary by quality tier, duration and model.

That single rule explains most of the system: text passes are close to free so you can explore endlessly, and video passes are metered so you decide deliberately when to spend.

The three quality tiers

• Standard — 30 credits per scene. Best for hook testing and volume batches.
• Pro — 70 credits per scene. Sharper motion and lighting for ads you intend to run.
• Cinema — 175 credits per scene. Highest fidelity, for hero assets and scale spend.

What a complete ad costs

A typical ad is three scenes. That makes a Standard ad 90 credits, a Pro ad 210 credits and a Cinema ad 525 credits, plus a credit each for URL analysis and the script pass.

On that basis a 900-credit month is roughly ten Standard ads, or four Pro ads, or a mix such as six Standard tests plus one Pro winner — which is closer to how most accounts actually run.

• Standard 3-scene ad ≈ 90 credits.
• Pro 3-scene ad ≈ 210 credits.
• Cinema 3-scene ad ≈ 525 credits.
• URL analysis and script pass ≈ 1 credit each.

What drives the cost of a render

• Quality tier — the largest single factor.
• Scene count — cost is linear in scenes, so trim scenes that do no work.
• Duration per scene — longer scenes cost proportionally more compute.
• Model choice — higher-fidelity models cost more per second of output.

A budgeting method that works

Split your monthly allowance roughly 70/30: seventy percent on Standard exploration, thirty percent on promoting winners to Pro or Cinema. If a plan gives you 900 credits, that is around twenty Standard scenes of testing plus a handful of high-quality finals.

Script passes and URL analysis are charged separately and cost a single credit each, so you can explore angles almost for free before committing to a render.

Monthly, bonus and purchased credits

Monthly allowance credits refresh with your billing cycle. Bonus and purchased top-up credits sit alongside them and are shown separately in the dashboard so a top-up never makes your balance look inconsistent with your plan.

Renders draw from the monthly allowance first, so purchased credits act as a buffer for heavy months rather than expiring unused at the cycle boundary.

Avoiding waste

• Read the script before rendering — most bad renders are bad scripts.
• Regenerate one scene rather than the whole ad.
• Keep test renders short; three scenes is usually enough to judge an angle.
• Save winning prompts as templates so you are not rebuilding the setup.
• Do not render at Cinema until the concept has proven itself at Standard.