Word
Subscription vs API key
Your paid plan powers the agent you talk to; if the app you build ever calls an AI of its own, that needs its own API key with its own prepaid credit.
Also called: why am I paying twice, plan vs credits
This is the moment people decide the whole thing is a scam, so here it is plainly.
A paid plan powers the agent you talk to while you build. It includes no credit for an app that you build and run yourself.
Most of what you build never needs any, it shows you your own data and a person does the deciding. But the day a tool calls an AI on its own, with nobody watching, it reaches the same company a different way: through an API key with its own prepaid balance. Two products, two bills, one company.
So when something you built says it has no credit, nothing is broken, the second thing was never set up. See what this costs today.