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Every account runs on real, prepaid credit — $10 of it loaded for you on day one, drawn down at the configured usage rates, topped up by you when it runs dry. Here's exactly how it works, no mystery.
Every message gets processed by an outside AI provider
Kade didn't build the AI brain from scratch — almost nobody does. When you send a message, it goes out to an outside AI service that does the actual thinking and sends a reply back. That service charges per token — those tiny text chunks from the tokens page. The cost depends on the model, the length of the conversation, and any tools used.
Kade pre-loads credits to cover it
So the lights stay on, Kade puts her own money in ahead of time as credits. Your chatting quietly draws that balance down, a few fractions of a cent at a time. It's small per message — but it's real, and it adds up across a whole family of people chatting away.
Nobody can accidentally run up anybody's bill
Here's the reassuring part. Your balance is the guardrail: everything you do draws from your own prepaid credit, and when it's empty, spending simply stops until you top it up — no surprise bills, no overdraft, nothing quietly piling up in the background. You genuinely cannot accidentally cost anyone a fortune, including yourself. (Chat is so cheap that the $10 you start with can last months of heavy talking — it's the pictures, videos, and calls that draw it down faster.)
Pictures, videos, and phone calls come from different jars
Making images is paid for separately, from its own little pot of credits (a few cents per picture). Videos are the big-ticket item — roughly 50 cents to a dollar per clip — and phone calls run about a cent and a half per minute. Same idea, different jars — and the characters give you a casual heads-up before doing the expensive stuff.
Want to see your own numbers? Open the account menu (your avatar, bottom-left), choose Explore, then Usage & Balance — it shows your balance and your month so far, item by item, nothing hidden.
So why mention any of this?
Not to make you feel guilty — the opposite. Kade opened this up because she wanted to share something cool with people she cares about, with usage charges contributing to the provider bills and the rest of the platform. Knowing how the money actually flows helps everyone trust the place… and when your balance needs feeding, the next page is where that happens.