AI Credits
AI Credits are the monthly usage allowance for Hatcher-hosted AI infrastructure. They are used for hosted UsePod/OpenRouter LLM calls, proxied web search, and hosted research/extract/crawl/embedding/tool usage.
AI Credits are not a crypto token, not cash-equivalent, and not the same as the $HATCHER SPL token. They exist purely inside the Hatcher platform.
What are they?
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Unit | AI Credits |
| Where | Your Hatcher account, server-side |
| How to see balance | hatcher.host/dashboard/billing — top of the page |
| Used for | Hosted LLM calls, web search, research/extract/crawl, embeddings, and routed AI tools |
| Refundable | No |
How AI Credits are granted
Free users receive 500 AI Credits after email verification, then a new Free grant is due every 30 days. Each paid tier grants its own monthly AI Credit allowance. Upgrades also grant a prorated AI Credit amount for the unused part of the current paid cycle, based on the allowance difference between the old tier and the new tier.
Example: if you upgrade from Starter to Pro halfway through a 30-day window, Hatcher grants half of the monthly AI Credit allowance difference between Starter and Pro.
Referrals, admin promotions, migrations, and one-time AI Credit packs can also add AI Credits.
| Source | Expiry behavior |
|---|---|
| Free monthly grant | Expires at the end of its 30-day period |
| Paid monthly grant | Expires at the earlier of 30 days or the paid tier expiry |
| Founding Member monthly grant | Expires after 30 days |
| Upgrade grant | Expires with the previous paid window it compensates |
| AI Credit pack | No automatic expiry in the current implementation |
| Referral/admin/migration grant | No automatic expiry unless explicitly set by Hatcher |
How AI Credits are spent
Hosted model calls are charged from your AI Credit balance based on provider usage cost when available, with UsePod preferred and OpenRouter used as fallback. Web search and hosted research tools are charged based on Brave/Tavily/provider cost.
The exact number of AI Credits charged depends on provider cost. Expensive models consume more AI Credits per request than cheaper models.
AI Credits can cover:
- Hosted UsePod/OpenRouter model calls
- Brave/Tavily web search
- Search extraction/crawl calls routed through Hatcher
- Embeddings and other hosted AI tool calls routed through Hatcher
The proxy may reserve an estimated amount before a hosted call and release any unused reservation after final usage is known. For long LLM calls that cross the balance mid-response, Hatcher allows a small capped technical overrun so the call can finish instead of being cut off.
Transaction history
Every AI Credit grant and usage event is logged. Open hatcher.host/dashboard/billing to see:
- Monthly grants
- Upgrade grants
- Referral grants
- Hosted LLM and search usage
- Remaining balance
AI Credits vs $HATCHER
| AI Credits | $HATCHER token | |
|---|---|---|
| Nature | Hosted AI usage allowance | On-chain SPL Token-2022 |
| Held | On Hatcher servers | In your Solana wallet |
| Granted via | Tiers, upgrades, referrals, promos | Buying on Jupiter / pump.fun / earning elsewhere |
| Can be traded? | No | Yes, freely |
| Refundable? | No | N/A (it’s your own tokens) |
| Used for | Hosted AI usage | Hatcher checkout (with 10% burn) |
They are separate systems — spending AI Credits does not burn any $HATCHER, and spending $HATCHER does not deduct AI Credits.