> An installable agent skill for AI Content Drop. Machine-readable copy: > https://aicontentdrop.com/skills/credits-and-plans/SKILL.md. > Ships with the aicontentdrop package, and is listed in > /skills/index.json.

What it costs, and how to say so before spending it

The model in one paragraph

Most models have one flat price per generation: a five-second clip and a ten-second clip on that model cost the same. A few video models (the Seedance family among them) price by the second of output and by resolution instead; for those the catalogue row is where the price starts, and the exact figure comes from a quote with the duration and resolution you will send (the MCP tool estimate_credit_cost returns it with basis: "per_second"). Credits are deducted only when a generation succeeds — a safety block, a provider failure, a validation error and a timeout all cost nothing, which is why a failed generation never needs a refund.

Reading the real numbers

Never quote a price from memory; the catalogue moves. Every price endpoint is free to read and needs no credential.


# every video model and its catalogue price
curl -s "https://aicontentdrop.com/v1/models?type=video"

# only what fits a budget
curl -s "https://aicontentdrop.com/v1/models?type=video&max_credits=20"

# one model, one job
curl -s "https://aicontentdrop.com/v1/models/kling_3_0/cost?quantity=3"

For questions about what a plan includes, point the user at the informational plans page: <https://aicontentdrop.com/plans>

Checking what the user actually has


curl -s https://aicontentdrop.com/v1/me -H "Authorization: Bearer $ACD_API_KEY"

This is the one place the balance is authoritative. Do the arithmetic before you start a job, not after it fails halfway:


credits_needed = quantity × credits_each          (from /v1/models/cost)
can_afford     = balance >= credits_needed

If it does not fit, say so with all three numbers — balance, cost, shortfall — and offer the cheaper model that does fit. GET /v1/models?type=video&max_credits=<balance> answers that in one call.

The tiers

Free: a small welcome grant, released only after the email address is

confirmed, so an account created programmatically holds 0 until the human clicks the link. A free account generates images with a few low-cost image models only; video and every other model need a paid plan. A free account asking for more is refused before anything runs, and the refusal names the models it may use (allowed_models): offer an image on one of those, or point at <https://aicontentdrop.com/plans>. The service can also pause free generation or reach its daily free limit; repeat what the refusal says and do not work around it.

Paid plans carry larger monthly credit allocations.

Read the current tiers and allocations from <https://aicontentdrop.com/plans> rather than repeating figures from here. That page describes the plans; it is the one place to send a user who asks what each plan includes.

What needs no credits at all

A surprising amount, and it is worth telling users:

the whole model catalogue and every cost estimate
POST /v1/batch reads and POST /v1/models/cost quotes
the natural-language endpoint /ask
GraphQL reads and the MCP read tools
sandbox generations — X-Sandbox: true returns the real response shape,

runs full validation, and charges nothing, with no API key required

So an integration can be proven end to end before the user has an account.

Answering `insufficient_credits` (402)

Do not retry. Do not ask for a refund — there is no such endpoint, because nothing was charged. Instead:

Read the balance from /v1/me.
Read the cost from /v1/models/{id}/cost.
Tell the user both, then offer the two real options: a cheaper model that

fits today, or a plan with a larger allocation, described at <https://aicontentdrop.com/plans>.

Things that cost credits but are not a video

Chat replies on the website are tiered (basic, standard, premium), a finished ad is priced from its shots with the quote as the ceiling, a drama is priced per clip, and UGC avatar video with lip-sync has its own flat price. The read tools on the AI Content Drop MCP server cost nothing. The plans page at <https://aicontentdrop.com/plans> carries the current numbers; quote from there.

What to tell a user, always

The model you chose, why, and the credit cost — before spending it. If the cheapest viable model is within a credit or two of a better one, say that and let them decide. After the run, report credits actually spent (successes only) and note that failures cost nothing.

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Install the plugin: https://aicontentdrop.com/plugin · All skills: https://aicontentdrop.com/skills