When a model is locked
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Every signed-in account can run the cheapest models right away on the one-time welcome credit. Pricier models stay locked until your first top-up, which unlocks every model permanently. There are no caps and no preview mode: a model either runs in full or is locked until you unlock it 🔹
New accounts get $0.50 of free credits at signup, no card required. The credit sits in your balance and covers operations priced at most $1: the $ (Affordable) chat models, images, audio, tools, and the smallest cloud-computer size. It is one-time and does not refill.
Everything bills the same place: your Credit balance. Money covers usage silently, so a funded balance never interrupts you. See Plans, credits, and the welcome credit.
A pricier model ($$ and up) greys in the picker exactly when the account has never funded: the picker reads Add credits to unlock on it, and selecting it shows the same note above the composer. It is never an upgrade prompt: the unlock is a top-up, not a plan. One top-up (from $5) unlocks the whole catalog, permanently.
Every model wears a cost badge, from a green $ for the cheapest up through $$$$ for frontier models. The badge is the same for every viewer; it is a fact about the model, not a judgment about you.
When work cannot be funded, a wall names the state and the remedy:
Your free credit is used up- a never-funded account at a $0 balance. Add credits to keep going, and the same top-up unlocks every model.
Add credits to unlock every model- the request is priced above what the welcome credit covers. Adding credits is both the remedy and the unlock.
Not enough credits- the balance ran out mid-run. Add credits to continue, or turn on auto top-up so it never happens.
At a balance of $1 or less, the composer shows a muted Add Credits nudge with the concrete balance, before anything stops.
Without an account you get two messages, then a prompt to sign up. Sign-up is the real unlock: every new account starts with $0.50 of free credits, separate from any balance.
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