Billing & limits
Last updated: June 12, 2026
BetterReviews meters AI usage with credits. Collecting, moderating, and displaying reviews is always unlimited and unmetered — only the AI you actively use draws credits. The most common action, an AI-guided review conversation, costs 1 credit, and it only counts when a customer goes through an Enhanced-model chat and submits. Abandoned chats, support-only conversations, and Standard-model conversations never count.
What draws a credit
| AI action | Credits |
|---|---|
| AI review conversation | 1 |
| Email subject or headline | 1 |
| Ad caption or social post from a review | 2 |
| Product-page content (one product) | 5 |
You see exactly what an action costs before you run it.
Doesn’t draw credits:
- Collecting, moderating, and displaying reviews — always unlimited
- Customer closes the tab partway through a chat and never returns
- Customer hits the support card and leaves without submitting
- Customer starts the chat but hits an error before submitting
- Standard-model conversations — unlimited on every plan
- Review request emails that are sent but never clicked
- Reviews imported from Okendo / Judge.me / Yotpo / Loox / CSV
Plans
| Plan | Price | AI credits | Top-up block | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $19/mo | 100 / month | $25 per 100 credits (Small) | New stores getting started |
| Growth | $79/mo | 400 / month | $50 per 300 credits (Medium) | Teams turning reviews into marketing |
| Scale | $299/mo | 1,500 / month | $100 per 1,000 credits (Large) | High-volume content teams |
| Enterprise | Custom | Negotiated | Custom | Brands at 7-figure volume |
Credits refresh every month. Need a custom credit pool or bespoke terms? Book a demo.
Fair auto-recharge (opt-in)
Auto-recharge — shown as top-ups on our pricing page — is how you buy extra credits when you exceed your plan. Your tier is determined by your plan — Starter gets Small, Growth gets Medium, Scale gets Large. You don’t pick a tier; if you want a bigger block at a lower per-credit rate, upgrade your plan.
Tiers at a glance
| Plan | Tier | Block size | Price per block | Grace (free) | Per-credit rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | Small | 100 credits | $25 | First 10 | $0.25 |
| Growth | Medium | 300 credits | $50 | First 30 | $0.17 |
| Scale | Large | 1,000 credits | $100 | First 100 | $0.10 |
Bespoke enterprise contracts can use a custom tier set by BetterReviews support — your Settings card shows the exact price per block you agreed to.
How the grace works
The first 10% of overage is free — once per billing period, on the first block only. Examples on the Starter plan (Small tier: $25 / 100 / 10 free):
- You exceed your plan by 7 credits → charged $0.
- You exceed by 15 → charged $25; your block covers credits up to 100 over plan.
- You exceed by 108 → charged $50 total ($25 × 2 blocks). The 2nd block gets no additional grace.
After a block is purchased, additional capacity is the full 100 / 300 / 1,000 credits — no grace on blocks 2+.
Off by default
Auto-recharge is opt-in. Until you enable it in Settings → Your Plan, running out of credits switches the chat to a simple review form (stars + text) for the rest of the period.
Your monthly spending cap
You set a cap (default $200, range $50–$1,000). When the next auto-recharge would exceed your cap, we stop buying blocks and the chat falls back to the simple form until your period renews.
Cap changes are instant. Anywhere in $50–$1,000, the new cap takes effect immediately — no Shopify re-approval. The $1,000 ceiling is approved once at install; the merchant cap inside that ceiling is enforced locally by BetterReviews.
How to enable auto-recharge
Go to Settings → Your Plan. You’ll find a “Fair auto-recharge” card with:
- A line showing your current plan’s block size and price (e.g. “On the Growth plan, extra credits cost $50 per 300. First 30 free.”)
- An optional upsell hint if a bigger plan would give you a better per-credit rate
- An auto-recharge On/Off switch and a monthly spending cap field ($50–$1,000)
- A single “Save changes” button (enabled once you’ve changed something)
Screenshot of the auto-recharge card in Settings → Your Plan — manual capture, drop in here.
Toggling auto-recharge on, off, or changing the cap inside $50–$1,000 is instant — no Shopify approval screen. (Turning auto-recharge off mid-period asks you to confirm, since once you run out of credits customers will see the simple form until you turn it back on.)
How to check your usage
Settings → Your Plan shows:
- Your current plan and its monthly credit limit
- Credits used this period
- Auto-recharge status (off / active / cap reached)
- How far into your current block you are
- Total spent this period against your cap
Upgrading or downgrading a plan
Same Settings → Your Plan page. Plan changes replace the Shopify subscription, so you’ll approve the new subscription once. A plan change also changes your overage tier — Starter→Growth takes you from $25/100 to $50/300, Growth→Scale takes you to $100/1,000 with a lower per-credit rate.
Trial granting is once-per-shop. First-time installers get 7 days. If you’ve previously had a paid subscription, switching plans bills you immediately on Shopify approval — no fresh trial. (The pricing page shows “Upgrade to” or “Downgrade to” instead of “Start 7-day free trial” once you’ve subscribed before.)
Forfeit on plan change: when you change plans, any unused paid credits from your previous period are forfeited — the new plan starts a fresh billing period and a fresh block allowance. Example: you’re on Growth, you bought one $50 Medium block (300 credits), you’ve used 50 of them, you upgrade to Scale mid-period. The remaining 250 credits on the old Medium block go away; your new Scale period begins with the fresh Large-tier allowance. Upgrading is still almost always cheaper because the per-credit rate drops.
Cancelling your plan
Settings → Your Plan → Cancel subscription. Your plan ends today; you won’t be charged for the remainder of the period, but it’s not refunded, and any unused paid credits are forfeited. AI conversations stop and customers see the simple form.
Outbound review-request emails are also cancelled. Any review requests we hadn’t sent yet — scheduled, claimed, or queued for delivery — are bulk-cancelled at the same time. Already-sent emails are unaffected. We also flip your review-collection toggle off so no new requests get queued.
Re-subscribing does NOT auto-resume sending. If you re-subscribe later, AI conversations come back automatically, but review-request emails stay off until you toggle them back on in Collect → Review collection. This is deliberate — we won’t start sending on your behalf after a billing lapse without an explicit click. When you flip the toggle back on, we walk you through the dry-run preview again so you can see exactly which orders we’d queue.
If you cancel during your free trial (you’ve never paid yet), you keep your trial eligibility — you can re-subscribe later and start a fresh 7-day trial. If you cancel after at least one paid charge captured, resubscribing won’t restart the trial; Shopify bills you immediately on the new approval.
Why we bill this way
Why it works this way: collecting and showing reviews is always free and unlimited — we only charge for the AI you actively run. A credit is spent when the AI actually delivers something: a collected review, a generated ad or email, a product-page refresh. Conversations that abandon, error out, or flip to support are real interactions we handle for you, but they aren’t reviews, so they don’t draw credits. Standard-model conversations are unlimited because we want you to use them freely. Locking the auto-recharge tier to your plan keeps billing transparent — no small-plan merchants accidentally racking up big blocks they don’t need, no hidden tiers for enterprise contracts unless BetterReviews sets one up with you directly.