What Happens When AI Agent Credits Run Out
When your Orbitable agents run out of credits mid-month, work pauses. There is no overage billing: you either buy a prepaid credit pack to keep going immediately, or wait for your plan's monthly reset, and reviewing work that has already been delivered never costs credits, so a paused month doesn't lock you out of your own Library.
That is the whole policy. No silent charge to the card on file, no automatic tier upgrade, no per-credit penalty rate. The fleet stops producing new work and waits for you to decide what happens next.
Why work pauses instead of running up a bill
Credits meter agent work: the Dispatcher assigning a task to one of the 50 specialist agents across Orbitable's 10 squads, an agent drafting a document, running an analysis, or generating a piece of content. That is a deliberate mechanical choice, not an accident of how the system was built.
Most usage-metered software defaults to the opposite: keep the lights on, bill you for whatever you used above the line at the end of the cycle. That model is convenient for the vendor and unpredictable for you, particularly on a platform where a single mission can dispatch work to several agents at once. Orbitable's approach inverts it. The ceiling is fixed by your plan, and when you reach it, the system stops rather than starts billing you for the overrun.
What actually stops when credits hit zero
Once your pool is at zero, agents can't take on new work. That means new drafts, new research runs, new mission steps, and new Autopilot-proposed plans can't be generated until credits are available again. Nothing you've already had produced disappears: documents, drafts, and completed mission outputs sitting in your Library or in the Dock stay exactly where they are.
What pauses is the generation of anything new. If a mission was mid-sequence when the pool ran dry, the next agent step in that sequence simply waits. It resumes from where it stopped once credits are back, rather than restarting or losing progress.
Reviewing and approving work is never metered
This is the part worth being precise about, because it changes what a credit pause actually costs you. Reviewing work never costs credits, on any plan, at any credit balance. That covers the full loop inside the Dock: a client or internal stakeholder seeing what's waiting for them, marking it up with pins directly on the draft, sending it back for revision, approving a piece into the Library, or raising a new request against an SLA target.
Practically, that means a mid-month credit shortfall doesn't stop your team or your clients from getting through a backlog of work that's already been produced. Approvals keep moving. Feedback keeps flowing. It's specifically the agents' ability to generate anything new that pauses, not your ability to act on what already exists.
Two ways to get back to work
There are exactly two routes back to generating new work once credits run out.
The first is a prepaid credit pack, bought on demand to top up your current balance and resume immediately. This is the route for a genuine mid-month crunch, where you've hit an unexpectedly heavy stretch (a big content push, a new client onboarding, a burst of Autopilot missions) and can't wait for the reset.
The second is simply waiting for your plan's monthly reset, at which point your full credit allowance for the new cycle becomes available and paused work resumes on its own. There's no partial refund or rollover mechanic to plan around here: it's pause, then either top up or wait.
Credits by plan: how much runway you get
Your starting credit pool is set entirely by plan tier. Here's what each one includes before you'd need a top-up pack.
Annual billing saves 20% on any paid plan, but it doesn't change the size of your monthly credit pool, it changes what you pay for it. Enterprise is the only plan with no credit ceiling at all; every other tier will eventually hit zero if usage outpaces the allowance.
How to avoid hitting zero mid-month
Extra seats and extra credits are two separate levers, and it's easy to confuse them. Adding a seat ($79/mo on Team, $49/mo on Agency) gives you another person who can log in and work; it does nothing to your credit pool. If you're routinely running dry, the fix is a bigger plan or a credit pack, not more seats.
Autopilot helps here mechanically, because it proposes a weekly plan of one focus and 3 to 5 missions with an explicit not-doing list, rather than leaving every agent free to run at once. Since Autopilot only proposes and approval happens in the Dock, you get a natural checkpoint each week to see what's about to consume credits before it does, and to cut anything on the carry-over or not-doing list that isn't worth the spend this month.
FAQ
Does Orbitable charge overage fees when credits run out?
No. There is no overage billing on any plan. When your credit pool hits zero, agent work pauses rather than continuing at an extra charge.
Do I lose work that was already generated before credits ran out?
No. Anything already produced, drafts, documents, and completed mission steps, stays in your Library and Dock exactly as it was. Only the generation of new work pauses; a mission mid-sequence resumes from where it stopped once credits return.
Can client reviewers still approve work in the Dock during a credit pause?
Yes. Reviewing work never costs credits at any balance, so pinning feedback, sending drafts back, approving into the Library, and raising new requests all keep working normally even while your credit pool is at zero.
How do I get more credits without waiting for the reset?
Buy a prepaid credit pack, which tops up your balance immediately and lets paused agent work resume straight away, rather than waiting for the next monthly cycle.
Does upgrading my plan or adding seats give me more credits?
Upgrading your plan changes your monthly credit pool; adding seats does not. Extra seats ($79/mo on Team, $49/mo on Agency) add more people who can use the platform, so if you're running out of credits regularly, a higher tier or a credit pack is the fix, not more seats.