What AI Credits are and how they're used

Cover Recognition runs on AI Credits, the same balance shown as My AI Credits in Preferences → Usage. Each time you photograph (or upload) a cover to identify it, that uses one AI Credit, so one Cover Recognition equals one credit, counted whether or not the app finds a match. (AI Credits are the app’s shared allowance for smart features, and for now Cover Recognition is what draws on them.)

Your plan sets how many you get each month. The free plan includes 10 a month. Paid plans include a much larger monthly allowance: Solo Gold 1,000 and Solo Platinum 2,000; Duet Gold 2,000 and Duet Platinum 4,000; Band Gold 5,000 and Band Platinum 10,000.

On a Duet or Band plan that allowance belongs to the household rather than to each person. Everyone on the plan draws from the same pot, so Band Gold’s 5,000 is 5,000 between the five of you, not 5,000 each.

Your allowance renews every month on your billing date, the same day of the month your subscription started, so there’s a fresh batch waiting each time. Paying yearly doesn’t change that: credits still arrive monthly on that same day, you don’t wait a year for them. On the free plan it renews on the day of the month you created your account. (Signed up on the 31st? In shorter months your credits simply renew on the month’s last day, then go back to the 31st once the month is long enough to hold it. A 29 February date works the same way: the 28th in years February doesn’t stretch that far.) Unused credits don’t carry over; every renewal starts you fresh at your plan’s full allowance.

Adding records by Search or Manual Entry never uses credits, so you can always keep cataloguing. And if you regularly run out before the month is up, upgrading to a larger plan lifts your monthly allowance. See What happens when you run out of credits.

If a subscription lapses, the allowance returns to the free plan's 10 a month and renews on the day of the month the account was created, the same as any free account.