Credits, plans and your own API key
Journeys runs your checks on a real browser and a real AI model. That costs money every time a check runs, so there is a meter. This page explains it.
One credit is one step
A step is one thing the agent does: it looks at the page, decides, and acts — clicks a button, types into a field, reads a result. A check that logs in and confirms the dashboard loaded might take eight steps. A check that walks a whole checkout might take forty.
Every step costs one credit. You can watch them happen while a check runs.
What is charged, and what is not
| Charged? | |
|---|---|
| A check that passes | Yes, one credit per step |
| A check that fails | Yes. The model did the work, and a failure is the product telling you something |
| The setup actions before the first step | No. They are fixed instructions, with no model call |
| A check that never starts | No. Refused, cancelled while queued, or stopped before its first step |
| A chain of four checks | Four checks, charged separately |
A check has a step budget — the most steps it is allowed before Journeys stops it. A check only starts if your balance is larger than its budget. In the usual case this leaves enough headroom for the whole check. The balance is not reserved, though: several checks running at once draw from the same balance. If they exhaust it together, a run can stop between steps. Journeys keeps the evidence already collected and does not turn that stop into a verdict on your site.
This admission rule means the last few credits in an account may be too few for a large check while still being enough for a small one.
Credits expire twelve months after you get them, and each batch has its own date. Journeys always spends the batch that expires soonest.
What you get
When you sign up you are given a batch of free credits. No card, no subscription. They are yours to spend on any check.
Pay as you go offers one-off credit packs. Buying a pack also raises how many checks can run at the same time.
Standard and Scale are monthly subscriptions. They give you a monthly allowance of credits, a check limit, and more checks running at once. Open Plans and credits for the current pack sizes, limits, prices, and currency; those values can change without changing how the meter works.
Running out of credits does not delete anything. Your checks, their schedules and their history stay exactly as they are. Journeys emails you, the site page says so instead of showing you a stale result, and everything resumes on its next slot as soon as your balance can fund the check's step budget again.
Bringing your own OpenAI key
This is part of a plan. If you are on Standard or Scale and you already pay OpenAI, you can point Journeys at your own key instead. Open Settings → Your OpenAI key and paste it.
The key is stored encrypted and is never shown again. Replace it when it changes or remove it to return to credits.
On the free tier or on pay-as-you-go credits, the field is not offered. Those tiers are metered in credits and nothing else.
With a key stored:
- Every check on your account runs on your key.
- No credits are spent. Not fewer — none.
- The model cost and the rate limits are yours, billed by OpenAI directly.
It is a choice, not a top-up. Journeys never decides between your credits and your key: while a key is stored, the key funds everything.
If your plan ends
Your key stays where it is — nothing is deleted — but it stops funding your checks, and they go back to spending credits from your next check onward. If you have no credits left, your checks stop and Journeys tells you.
You can still remove the key, and you can use it again by subscribing again.
Going back to credits
Remove the key. That is the whole answer, and it takes effect on your next check.
Credits you bought before storing a key are not lost and are not spent while the key is there. They sit in your account and expire on their normal dates. If you want to use them, remove the key first.
If your key stops working
A key can be revoked, rotated, or run out of quota at OpenAI. When that happens every check stops at its first step, so no result is a verdict on your site.
Journeys says exactly that. Your checks read Key not working rather than Down, and the site page explains why. Store a working key, or remove the key to go back to credits — either one fixes it.
Questions people ask
Does a slow or heavy page cost more? Not in credits. A step is a step. Behind the scenes a heavy page does cost us more, and the credit price accounts for that on average.
Can I see what a check cost? Yes. Each run records the credits it spent, on the run's own page.
Do checks run while I am out of credits? No, and that is deliberate. A status page that shows green because nothing ran is worse than one that admits it stopped.