What happens to unused credits at renewal
Unused Versely credits roll over when a plan renews, so a quiet month banks capacity instead of burning it. How to plan a quarter around that.
Most subscription products train you to spend before the meter resets. Minutes, seats, API calls, storage allowances: use it this month or lose it. That reflex is why people ask the same question in their second week on Versely, usually phrased as "do I need to burn these before the 14th?"
You do not. Renewal grants are additive. Whatever is sitting in your balance on renewal day is still there afterwards, with the new grant added on top.
That single behaviour changes how you should plan output, because it means the meaningful budgeting unit is not the month.
Renewal adds, it does not reset
When a plan renews, Versely credits the new grant to your existing balance. There is no zeroing step, no expiry sweep, no separate bucket of "this month's credits" that ages out. Unused credits stay in the balance and carry forward for as long as the subscription is active.
The published behaviour is stated in two parts, and it is worth reading both. Each renewal adds its credits to your existing balance instead of resetting it, so an unused month carries forward. And credits do not expire while you are subscribed.
The practical consequence is that a slow month is not a loss, it is a deposit. A month where you shipped two videos instead of eight has not wasted six videos' worth of credits. It has moved them to the month where you need them.
The full mechanics are on the credits page, which also lists what each cadence grants.
What a quarter looks like when nothing expires
Take Standard Monthly at 580 credits a month. Three renewals grant 1,740 credits across a quarter. Here is what a realistic uneven quarter does:
| Month | Grant | Opening balance | Spent | Closing balance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| One (planning, light output) | 580 | 580 | 200 | 380 |
| Two (production ramp) | 580 | 960 | 700 | 260 |
| Three (launch push) | 580 | 840 | 840 | 0 |
Look at month two. Spend was 700 against a 580 grant. On a reset model that is simply not possible: the month is capped at what it granted, and the 380 unspent from month one is gone. Here the quarter's ceiling is what constrains you, not any individual month's.
That is the whole planning insight. You budget a quarter, and the months are just when the money arrives.
It matters most for work that does not fit inside one grant. The published workflow recipes make good anchors because each one is a real multi-scene video with a real total. Viral Panel & Reaction Reel runs 60 credits at preview resolution. At the other end, Lunchwell — Hospital Visit Story is 1,800 credits at preview and 3,600 at full resolution. The 1,800 preview render does not fit in a single Standard Monthly grant, and it does not quite fit inside three of them either — a quarter grants 1,740. On a reset model that piece is simply unbuildable on Standard Monthly, at any pace. With rollover it becomes buildable the moment you carry 60 credits past the quarter boundary, which one quiet week covers. Browse the rest at the workflows hub.
The condition attached: the subscription has to stay active
Rollover is tied to an active subscription. Credits carry forward for as long as you are subscribed, which is a different statement from "credits are yours forever regardless".
This is the one place where the "bank it for later" strategy can bite. If your plan is to hold a large balance and then pause billing for a couple of months before a big push, confirm what happens to the balance during that gap before you rely on it. Downgrading, upgrading and cancelling can all be done from inside the app on any cadence, with no long-term contract, but a cancelled subscription is not the same state as a quiet one.
The safer version of the same strategy: stay on the cheapest cadence that keeps the account active rather than cancelling outright. The weekly plan exists as the shortest commitment Versely sells, at $9 for 180 credits a week, and it can be cancelled at any time.
Credit packs land in the same balance
The second half of the rollover story is top-ups. One-time credit packs add to the same balance as your subscription rather than sitting in a separate wallet with separate rules. They run from $1 for 20 credits up to $50 for 1,000 credits.
So there is exactly one number to watch. Subscription grants, pack purchases and rollover all pool into it, and every job draws from it. If the balance runs out mid-project, generation stops until it is topped up, and a pack lands immediately, which is the usual way to cover a spike without changing your billing cadence.
Nothing generates for zero credits, incidentally. The cheapest single generation in the catalog is 1 credit, and the dearest video jobs run into the thousands, so "the balance is the only meter" is a rule with no exceptions to remember.
How to plan a quarter around rollover
- Work out your quarterly grant, not your monthly one. Cadence times three, plus whatever you are carrying today. That is the number your plan has to fit inside.
- Price the deliverables, not the days. Pull real totals from the cost hub or the workflow recipes rather than guessing. A 12-scene story and a reaction reel differ by more than an order of magnitude.
- Put the expensive thing in month three. Deliberately underspend early so the hero piece has a balance behind it. This is the manoeuvre rollover exists to enable, and most people never make it on purpose.
- Keep an iteration reserve inside the quarter. Rerolls are real spend, and they are the line item most often left out. Reroll rates and the shots you throw away covers sizing it.
- Use packs for spikes, cadence for baseline. If you are consistently topping up two packs a month, that is a cadence signal, not a top-up habit.
- Do the free part for free. Editor previews render at 480p at no credit cost with a short per-user cooldown between them, and the final export is charged once. Iterating in previews rather than exports is the largest avoidable line item in most accounts. The editor cost breakdown has the arithmetic.
For a fuller allocation framework across a month of output, budgeting AI content like a media buyer picks up where this leaves off.
FAQ
Do unused credits roll over on every plan?
Yes. Renewal grants are additive on weekly, monthly and annual cadences alike. The grant is added to your existing balance rather than replacing it, so nothing is lost at the boundary regardless of which cadence you are on.
Do credit packs expire separately from subscription credits?
No. Packs top up the same balance rather than creating a second wallet with its own rules. Once a pack is applied there is one number, and jobs draw from it in the same way whatever put the credits there.
If I cancel, do I keep the balance?
Rollover is described as lasting for as long as the subscription is active, so treat a cancellation as the event that ends the guarantee rather than something the balance survives automatically. If you are planning a gap, check the behaviour in-app before you bank a large balance against it.
Can I spend more in one month than that month's grant?
Yes, up to whatever your balance holds. That is the direct consequence of rollover: month two in the table above spends 700 credits against a 580 grant because month one carried 380 forward. The constraint is the balance, never the calendar.