Understand credits and billing
Dash runs on credits. Every conversation, scheduled task, and tool call consumes credits from your workspace’s balance. You start with free credits, earn more by connecting tools, and can buy top-ups when you need them.
The Billing page
Section titled “The Billing page”The Billing page is where you manage everything billing-related. Open it at app.dashpup.ai, go to Settings, and click Billing.
You’ll see:
- Balance — how many credits you have right now, with a button to buy more.
- Plan — your current subscription, its status, and the renewal date. Click Manage plan to open a modal where you can cancel, reactivate a canceling plan, or open the billing portal to update your payment method and view invoices.
- Earn free credits — progress toward free credit grants.
- Top-ups — optional automatic top-ups that fire when your balance gets low.
- Usage limits — caps you can set to control spending.
- Activity — a ledger of every credit transaction (earned, spent, bought, expired).
You can also ask Dash directly:
@Dash what plan are we on?
@Dash what’s our credit balance?
How credits work
Section titled “How credits work”Your workspace has a single credit balance. Credits come from your subscription plan, one-time top-ups, seed grants, and tool-connect grants. They all land in the same pool and roll over from cycle to cycle as long as your subscription stays active.
If you cancel your subscription, your entire credit balance is forfeited, including any top-up credits. Reactivating the plan before cancellation takes effect preserves the balance.
Earn free credits
Section titled “Earn free credits”Dash gives you free credits in three ways:
- Seed credits — every new workspace starts with $100 in free credits so you can try Dash without buying anything.
- Tool-connect grants — each time you connect a new app (Gmail, HubSpot, Jira, etc.), your workspace earns $10 in credits. You can earn grants for up to 10 tools, so free credits top out at $200, including the $100 you start with. A workspace that already got $200 or more in free credits earns no more tool-connect grants.
- Referral program — copy your referral link from the Billing page and share it with another team. When that team signs up through your link and makes its first payment, you and they each get free credits.
You can track your progress on the Earn free credits section of the Billing page. It shows which grants you’ve claimed, how many tools you’ve connected, how close you are to the cap, and how many teams have joined through your referral link.
Verify a card on the Free plan
Section titled “Verify a card on the Free plan”After a Free workspace uses some of its free credits, Dash may pause and ask an admin to verify a credit card before it takes on more work. No charges are made. Verification only confirms your identity.
- Admins can click Verify a card in the notice Dash posts, or in the banner on the web dashboard.
- Each card can verify one Free workspace.
- Verifying a card only lifts the pause. API keys, code repos like GitHub, and custom MCP servers need a paid plan.
Weekly free usage on the Free plan
Section titled “Weekly free usage on the Free plan”A Free workspace that has never paid for Dash may have a weekly usage limit, counted over a rolling 7 days. It’s separate from your credit balance, so you can reach it with free credits still left. Credits you haven’t used stay in your balance.
Once the workspace reaches the limit, new messages to Dash, scheduled task runs, and Heartbeat suggestions pause. A Heartbeat suggestion the limit stops sends no message. In a reply that’s already underway, Dash’s remaining calls to your connected apps and to its own tools are refused, so it can still post an answer that skipped a step. The 7 days roll forward rather than following the calendar week, so Dash continues once enough of that usage is more than 7 days old.
When Dash turns down a message because of the limit, it replies where you asked: in Slack, in Teams, by text message, by email, or on the web dashboard. The reply gives the day Dash can continue. In Slack and Teams, the exception is when the person asking is a guest or from outside your workspace, or when the message is in a channel that includes guests or people from another organization. In those cases, Dash posts at most a short warning, without the day or any buttons. In a one-to-one conversation, an admin sees:
You’ve reached this week’s free usage. Upgrade to keep going now, or continue on October 21.
Members are asked to check with an admin, and Dash usually names who can upgrade. In a channel or group chat, one reply covers everyone: it says an admin can upgrade to keep going now, or Dash can continue on that day.
In Slack and Teams, admins, and everyone in a channel or group chat, also get a Buy credits button, which opens the paid plans. On the web dashboard, the message stays in the chat marked Not sent, with the reply under it, and admins get an Upgrade button, which opens the same paid plans (see If a message can’t go through on the web).
Upgrading to a paid plan removes the weekly limit. If a scheduled run’s notice says the workspace is out of credits but your balance isn’t empty, see When a run can’t start.
Buy more credits
Section titled “Buy more credits”When you need more credits, click Buy credits on the Billing page. Top-up credits are added to your balance immediately.
You must have an active subscription to purchase top-ups.
If you have a promotion code (from an event, a partner, or a Dash offer), enter it on the checkout page. The code field appears automatically and the discount applies to your purchase.
Automatic top-ups
Section titled “Automatic top-ups”Instead of buying credits manually, you can turn on automatic top-ups. When your balance drops below a threshold you choose, Dash automatically tops up with a set amount.
Configure this in the Top-ups section of the Billing page. You need a plan with a payment method on file, and only admins can turn automatic top-ups on or change them.
When credits run low
Section titled “When credits run low”When your workspace is running low on credits, or has run out, a banner appears at the top of every page at app.dashpup.ai. Everyone in the workspace sees it, members included. When you’re out, Dash is paused until credits are added.
The balance number changes color too. It turns amber when credits are low and red when you’re out, on both the Overview page and the Billing page.
What the banner offers depends on who you are:
- Admins on the Free plan see Buy credits, plus Connect a tool while a tool-connect grant is still available.
- Admins on a paid plan see Upgrade plan and Set up top-ups. If automatic top-ups are already on but haven’t refilled the balance, it says so and offers Review top-ups instead.
- Members are asked to check with a workspace admin, and the banner names who can add credits.
Workspace owners and admins also get a direct message from Dash in Slack or Teams, or an email if your workspace only uses Dash on the web, when credits run low or run out (at most once a day), when credits are added, and when the subscription renews. They’re also told when a renewal payment or an automatic top-up fails, or when a payment is disputed, with a button to open Billing.
On the Free plan, while a tool-connect grant is still available, the low and out-of-credits messages offer Buy credits and Connect a tool buttons.
A low-credit banner can be hidden with Hide for today. It clears on its own once credits land, whether from a purchase or an automatic top-up. On a paid plan, if an automatic top-up is set to refill the balance in time, you won’t see the low-credit banner at all.
If a message can’t go through on the web
Section titled “If a message can’t go through on the web”On the web dashboard, a message your workspace can’t pay for stays in the chat, greyed out and marked Not sent. Dash replies under it with the reason, such as running out of credits, hitting a usage limit, or a card that still needs verifying, and what to do next.
Admins get the next step as buttons, like Buy credits or Set up top-ups. The buttons open in a new tab, so your message stays where it is. Members don’t get these buttons; Dash usually names the admins to ask instead. Everyone gets a Retry button that sends the kept message again once the problem is sorted.
If credits run out partway through a task
Section titled “If credits run out partway through a task”If your workspace runs out of credits, hits a usage limit, or needs a card verified while Dash is in the middle of a task, Dash stops the task instead of retrying it and tells you why. Sort out the cause, then ask again.
What consumes credits
Section titled “What consumes credits”| Activity | Consumes credits? |
|---|---|
| Interactive conversations (Slack, Teams, web, Chrome extension) | Yes |
| Scheduled task runs | Yes |
| SMS/Text message delivery | Yes |
| Heartbeat suggestions (the investigation behind each one, counted as threads on the Usage page) | Yes |
| Org chart inference | No |
| Memory moderation | No |
The number of credits a conversation uses depends on the model, the length of the conversation, and the tools involved. Heavier models and longer conversations cost more. SMS/Text delivery is priced separately by message length and destination country, and the cost is added to the session that sent it.
When a request is too big to finish
Section titled “When a request is too big to finish”Each request also has a built-in size cap, so one runaway request can’t run up a large bill. If a request hits it, Dash stops partway and tells you:
This request was too big to finish in one go, so Dash stopped it partway. Try asking for it in smaller steps.
Break the work into smaller asks and try again. The cap applies to each request, not the whole conversation, so long threads keep going and keep their context.
Admins can also set a lower per-request limit of their own in the Usage limits section of the Billing page. See Set a spend limit.
What’s next
Section titled “What’s next”- Set a spend limit to cap how many credits your workspace uses.
- Monitor usage to see where credits are going.