Credits and browser minutes

Centrus meters three things, and a busy day can use all three without them ever meeting. An answer in Chat spends message credits. An agent spends automation credits. An agent that opens a website spends browser minutes as well, on top of those automation credits. Using one does not reduce the others.

Each allowance belongs to the organisation, not to one person. Sarah Price on GPT-5.6 Terra and Dylan Hughes on WhatsApp draw on the same message credits. Every agent, and everyone who builds one, draws on the same automation credits and the same browser minutes.

Small Team and Large Team include the same automation credits and the same browser minutes. What differs is message credits, storage and seats, which are set out in Plan and usage. Enterprise allowances are agreed for that account, so they are not listed here.

A website assistant, where the organisation has one, has its own message allowance. It does not draw on Monthly Messages. Buying and reading that allowance is covered in Add-ons.

A message credit is one unit of an answer, not one conversation and not one question you type. The model sets the starting cost, and a few extras can add to it. The whole organisation shares the month's allowance: 500 on Small Team and 2,500 on Large Team. Extra blocks sit on top of that number. The meter on Billing is labelled Monthly Messages, and the line under the count reads of 2,500 per month on Large Team, or of 500 per month on Small Team.

The count runs from midnight at the start of the 1st and finishes at the end of the last day. On 10/10/2026 it covers 01/10/2026 to 31/10/2026, and the next count starts at 00:00 on 01/11/2026. Anything unused at the end of the month is not carried over. Changing plan does not zero the meter. Credits already used this month stay used, and the new allowance applies to the same month.

A reply that fails before any answer is produced is not counted. Neither is one you cancel before any text or file has reached you. An answer that does reach you is counted in full, including the extras in the next section, even if you then delete the chat.

Only admins can open Billing and read the meter. Everyone else finds out the allowance is used when Chat, WhatsApp or voice refuses the next message. The meter itself is described in Plan and usage.

Every answer starts with the model's own cost. Most models are 1 credit. GPT-5.6 Terra and GPT-5.2 Pro are 2. GPT-5.6 Sol is 4. GPT-6 Astra is 10. The reasoning level does not change that, and nor does searching your files or the web. The full list, including older models that stay on an account at 1 credit, is in What each answer costs.

Three things add to the model's cost, and only when they actually happen:

• A file built in the reply adds 2 credits, once, however many files that reply produces. Asking for a PDF and a spreadsheet in the same answer is still 2, not 4. See Files Centrus makes for you.
• A picture adds 1 to 10 credits for each picture that is produced, and only when the picture button is on. Low is 1, Auto and medium are 2, High is 4, Extra high is 6 and Max is 10. Wording such as high quality in the message uses that quality for that picture. See Web search and images.
• WhatsApp adds 1 credit to every answer that is sent. Microsoft Teams does not. A Teams answer costs the same as the same answer on the web.

Before a reply starts, Centrus checks that the credits already used, plus the model's cost, plus 1 on WhatsApp, plus the picture quality if the picture button is on, would stay within the allowance. If they would not, the reply does not start. The 2 credits for a file are added when a file is built, so they are not part of that opening check.

On WhatsApp the same model costs one more, because delivery is charged as well. Dylan Hughes asking for an access code, answered by GPT-5.6 Terra with no file, is 3 credits. The same question on the web is 2. Two WhatsApp replies are 6.

Voice mode is only in web chat. It is not available on a WhatsApp or Microsoft Teams conversation. It costs 2 message credits when the session starts, and 2 more every 60 seconds it stays open, up to 15 minutes. Each question it looks up is then charged at the model's normal cost, on top of the time. A session just past 2 minutes, with two lookups on GPT-5.6 Terra, is 6 credits for the time and 4 for the lookups, 10 in all. Voices and the button itself are covered in Talk to Centrus.

The voice button stays unavailable when fewer than 2 message credits remain, because that is the cost of starting. If a session is already open and the next minute would pass the allowance, it ends and Chat shows Live has ended because there are not enough message credits left. A lookup that cannot be made is spoken back as There are not enough message credits left to look that up.

Automation credits pay for agents. They never pay for an answer in Chat, and an agent's steps never spend message credits. Small Team and Large Team both include 10,000 a billing period. The count in the builder turns amber from 75 per cent of the allowance and red at 100 per cent. Rest the pointer on it for the reset date.

The prices below are the ones used across Agent Builder. A step that fails is not charged, but steps that finished earlier in the same run are. A run that is turned away before it starts, because the allowance is used up, costs nothing. The worked examples, the per-run budget and the usage report are in Automation credits and usage limits.

Phone calls are charged to the agent rather than to one run, so they do not count towards that run's own budget. Browser sessions spend automation credits and browser minutes at the same time. Refreshing a tile is covered with the rest of the Dashboard in Dashboard.

Browser minutes measure how long an agent's browser sessions stay open. They are not a third kind of credit, and they are not taken out of the 10,000 automation credits. A session spends both: automation credits for the work, and minutes for the time.

Every session that starts uses at least 1 minute. After that, each minute or part of a minute counts. A session of 6 minutes uses 6. A session that starts and fails still uses the minutes it was open, and it still costs the automation credit for starting. Small Team and Large Team include 300 minutes. Extra blocks add 300 at a time.

Select a Browser Use step on the canvas. The top of its details is Monthly browser usage: minutes used out of the allowance, how many remain, how many sessions are running or queued, and Resets with the date. The bar stays blue under 90 per cent, turns amber at 90 per cent and red at 100 per cent. At 100 per cent the box adds New browser sessions are paused until the monthly allowance resets. Every Browser Use step shows the same organisation total.

A new session is refused once the minutes used have reached the allowance. The refusal names the allowance and the reset date, for example This organisation has used its 300-minute monthly Browser Use allowance. The allowance resets on 26/10/2026. Sessions already running are not cut off at that moment. How long one session may last, and the step limits around it, are in Automation credits and usage limits.

Meridian FM is on Large Team, so the month holds 2,500 message credits, 10,000 automation credits and 300 browser minutes. The organisation model is GPT-5.6 Terra. Sarah Price has not chosen a personal model, so her chats use Terra at 2 credits an answer. This is 10/10/2026, her Wednesday.

• Four web answers, with no file and no picture: 4 times 2, which is 8.
• One web answer that builds a spreadsheet of call-out rates: 2 for Terra and 2 for the file, which is 4.
• One web answer with a single picture at Auto: 2 for Terra and 2 for the picture, which is 4.
• Two WhatsApp replies to Dylan Hughes, with no file: 3 each, which is 6.
• A voice session just past 2 minutes, looking up two questions: 6 for the time and 4 for the lookups, which is 10.

That is 32 message credits. The Monthly Messages meter moves from 1,204 to 1,236 of 2,500. Nothing has happened to the automation credits or the browser minutes, because Sarah was in Chat.

The same morning, an agent chased overdue invoices. It found 12, and wrote and sent a reminder for each. That run used 51.2 automation credits. The line by line total, and why the next morning might be 47.8 instead, is in A run, added up. Twenty two runs at about 50 credits use about 1,130 of the 10,000, and they do not touch message credits.

A browser session that spends 6 minutes on a supplier portal uses 6 browser minutes. It also uses automation credits: 1 when the session starts, then more for the work, measured the same way as an AI step. The minutes and the credits are both drawn, and neither replaces the other.

The three allowances do not reset on the same day. Message credits follow the calendar. Automation credits and browser minutes follow the organisation's billing period.

• Message credits start again at 00:00 on the 1st. On an annual plan they still start again each calendar month. Paying annually does not hand you a year's messages in one block.
• Automation credits and browser minutes start again each month on your billing date. In the figures that date is 26/10/2026. On an annual plan they also start again each month, on the date the plan began, so you get 10,000 credits and 300 minutes every month of the year.
• Unused amounts are not kept. Each new period starts with the full allowance, not with the leftover added on.
• Changing plan part way through a period does not reset automation credits or browser minutes. Message credits already used this calendar month stay used as well.
• An account with no current billing period, including a free plan, counts automation credits and browser minutes on the calendar month instead, from 00:00 UTC on the 1st. Message credits stay on the calendar month either way.

To read the billing date, an admin opens Settings, Billing, Subscription, and reads Current period. Anyone who can open the builder can also rest on the credit count, which ends with Resets and that date. The same date is on Monthly browser usage.

Add-on blocks raise the allowance for every period from the day they are added. They do not reset the amount already used, and they are not a one-off top-up. Cancelling the add-on lowers the allowance from the next change, which is covered in Add-ons.

There is no single page that lists all three. Each one is shown in the place the work happens, and only message credits appear on Billing.

• Message credits. Settings, Billing, General, on the Current Plan card, the meter labelled Monthly Messages. Admins only. The bar turns red at 90 per cent. Red is a warning. Chat is only stopped when the count reaches the allowance, or when the next reply would pass it. Storage and seats on the same card are a different guide: Plan and usage.
• Automation credits. The count on the Agent Builder toolbar, for anyone who can open the builder. The same totals are in the Agent Builder Usage report under Settings, Reports. See See where credits go.
• Browser minutes. Monthly browser usage at the top of any Browser Use step. There is no meter for them on Billing.

Chat does not print a receipt on each answer. To see what a day cost, read Monthly Messages at the start and at the end, or add the lines up the way the example above does. The builder does show a run's own credits, in Runs.

Each allowance stops a different piece of work, and the message depends on where you are. Nothing already on screen is deleted. A run that has started keeps the steps it has finished.

On the web, once the month's message credits have reached the allowance, the next send does not leave the browser. A note titled Limits Reached reads Chat limits exceeded, subscribe to a plan or buy add-on messages, with Go to Billing. Go to Billing opens this Settings page for an admin. For anyone else it opens Settings and then sends them away, because Billing is an admin tab.

If some credits remain, but not enough for this reply, the send does leave the browser and comes back as You've reached your messages limit. That happens when the model's cost, the WhatsApp credit or the picture would pass the allowance. The meter can still show a number under the limit. A Terra answer needs 2, so 2,499 of 2,500 is not enough for it.

On a phone the same Limits Reached note appears over the chat. The message box stays on screen, and the send is refused until the 1st, or until an admin raises the allowance.

09:41

Centrus

Riverside House P1 response

The P1 response time at Riverside House is 4 hours.

Limits Reached

Chat limits exceeded, subscribe to a plan or buy add-on messages

Go to Billing

1

Type a message...

1. 1Limits Reached on a phone, with Go to Billing.

On WhatsApp, the reply is Sorry, your organisation has reached its message limit. Please contact your account administrator to upgrade your plan or purchase additional message credits. On Microsoft Teams, once the allowance is used up, no reply comes back. The person messaging from Teams has to ask an admin to check Monthly Messages.

Automation credits warn earlier. From 75 per cent, the toolbar count is amber and a strip under it reads This organisation has used 7,846 of its 10,000 monthly automation credits (78%). The numbers and the percentage are the live ones. At 100 per cent the strip is red: This organisation has used its 10,000-credit monthly Agent Builder allowance. New runs will fail to start until it resets or you buy more credits from Billing settings. A run that is refused says the allowance is used and names the reset date. Runs already going are not stopped mid-step by that check. The colours and the other limits are in Warnings as the allowance runs low.

Browser minutes do not have a 75 per cent strip. The bar on the step turns amber at 90 per cent and red when the minutes are used up, and new sessions are paused. A session that cannot start reports the allowance and the reset date from Monthly browser usage.

An admin can raise any of the three allowances from Settings, Billing, General, under Add-ons. The blocks and prices published for them are:

• Extra message credits: £10 a month for each 1,000. They are added to Monthly Messages.
• Extra automation credits: £50 a month for each 5,000. The card is Extra Automation Credits.
• Extra browser minutes: £20 a month for each 300. The card is Extra Browser Use Minutes.

The two agent cards can be changed when Agent Builder is included, which it is on Small Team and Large Team. On a plan where it is not included, both cards are greyed out. The steps, the confirmation and when the charge starts are in Add-ons. The same blocks, as they appear from the builder, are also in Buy more credits or browser minutes.

Buying a block does not reset what has already been used. It raises the number the meter is measured against, from the day the payment completes, and it stays raised each period until the add-on is removed. If the allowance is already used up, the new room is available as soon as the payment has gone through, and people do not have to wait for the reset.

Moving from Small Team to Large Team raises message credits from 500 to 2,500. It does not raise automation credits or browser minutes, because both plans include the same 10,000 and the same 300. How a plan change works, including what happens to a meter that is already over the new allowance, is in Plan and usage.

These are the messages tied to the three allowances. Messages about storage, seats and changing plan are in Plan and usage.

The allowances are shared. Reading the meters and buying more are not. Agent Builder access is separate from being an admin, and it is set in Edit users and roles.

A person who is not an admin cannot raise an allowance themselves. When Chat refuses them, the practical step is to tell an admin which of the three has run out, because the fix is different for each one.