Usage and credits

What are credits?

Credits are used for two things in Binary:

• Using in-app AI
• Sending emails to candidates from Binary

Every plan comes with free usage credits each month, measured in US dollars. There's no separate credit currency to convert: $1 of credit is $1 of usage. Credits belongs to the whole workspace - everyone from the team can share the common credit pool.

Why does Binary have credits?

We believe that customers should only pay for what they use, in features that have usage-based pricing (like AI tokens or emails). Credits are nothing but a form of usage-based currency.

If you're hiring for a few roles only, the free credits with each plan are generally enough and you don't need to buy additional credits at all. And if there are a few months where you are hiring for dozens of roles and need a lot more AI usage, you just buy the add-ons for those months.

What each feature costs?

• Emails: $0.002 for every email sent to candidates ($1 covers 500 emails)
• AI features: $1 for every $1 of token usage

What are the AI features?

• AI assistant: Just like ChatGPT or Claude, Binary has an in-app AI assistant that can take actions, answer questions about your hiring data and more. On average, $1 of credit lets you exchange 100+ messages with the AI assistant.
• AI review: You can ask the AI assistant to review candidates based on certain criteria. This is an in-depth review which reads through files like the candidate resume, and gives an answer+reasoning for each candidate on each criteria so that you have full transparency. On average, $1 credit lets you review around ~200 candidates for a criteria.
• AI lookups: You can also use AI to fetch public profiles (like LinkedIn) of candidates from public data sources. This data enrichment is done using 3rd party data providers that Binary integrates with. On average, $1 of credit lets you lookup 50 candidate profiles from public sources.
• AI transcripts: If you have a video question in your hiring form, you can use Binary to automatically create a transcript of the candidate's video submission. This transcript can be used for faster manual review or AI review. On average, $1 of credit lets you transcribe 200 candidate submissions.

Note that the cost of AI features depends a lot on your exact query and data format, so your actual costs can be lower or higher than these approximates.

Can I use my own AI instead?

Yes, you can. Binary has a strong MCP server that lets you connect to Claude, ChatGPT or your favourite AI. If you are using your own AI, we don't deduct any credits for AI usage since you are covering that cost.

However, there a few differences in using the in-app AI versus your AI:

• In app AI credits are shared across the entire team, whereas your own AI is generally an individual subscription
• Binary has optimized the AI review for the best quality of results; you might need to iterate at your end if you're running the AI review via MCP.
• Binary has built-in integration with data enrichment tools (for fetching public profiles like LinkedIn). While using your own AI, you'll need to figure out your own data providers and pay them separately.

Tracking your usage

Open Settings → Billing & Usage. One meter shows how much of this month's usage you've used, how much is left, and the date it resets. The meter counts your free usage credits and any extra usage together.

Below the meter, a bar splits this month's spend between Email and AI, each labelled with the dollars spent.

How many free credits are included per month?

Rough examples of what one month's free usage credits pay for if spent on a single action:

• Free ($1) - about 500 emails, or AI review of about 200 candidates.
• Starter ($10) - about 5,000 emails, or AI review of about 2,000 candidates.
• Business ($25) - about 12,500 emails, or AI review of about 5,000 candidates.
• Pro ($100) - about 50,000 emails, or AI review of about 20,000 candidates.

On a paid plan you can buy extra usage on top - see Buy extra usage. Unused credits don't roll over.

Buying extra credits if your free credits run out

On any paid plan, you can buy extra monthly usage - a recurring monthly amount added on top of your free usage credits.

• Choose it when you pick a paid plan, or any time from Settings → Billing & Usage.
• Increasing extra usage takes effect as soon as the payment goes through.
• Lowering or removing it takes effect at the next monthly reset - until then you keep the higher amount, and you can undo the change.
• Free workspaces can't buy extra usage - upgrade to a paid plan first.

When it resets?

Your credits usage resets every month. On a monthly plan it resets on your billing date; on a yearly plan it still resets monthly, on the same day of the month your subscription started. Free workspaces reset monthly too.

What happens if you run out of credits?

Anything that costs credits stops until your credits reset (next month) or you add a top-up.

• Sending emails, including bulk messages and assignments. A bulk send checks the whole batch first - if there isn't enough left for every recipient, nothing is sent.
• Running AI review. A running or automatic review pauses and picks up again once there's usage left.
• AI lookups and messages to the AI assistant.

Binary shows a nudge with an Upgrade button, where you can upgrade your plan or buy extra usage. Next to it, admins also see a "Show usage" link or button that opens Settings → Billing & Usage directly, to check the breakdown before deciding whether to upgrade or buy extra usage.