How it works
Credits
Obside measures the AI work it does for you in credits: a quick question uses little, building an agent uses more, and anything without AI is free. You don't see them as a number. Your plan includes a monthly AI usage allowance, and the app shows how much of it you have used as a gauge from 0 to 100%.
On Plus, the monthly allowance covers about 100 agent creations, or any mix of questions, agent creations and AI-powered agents. Pro covers about 300 and Max about 500. The allowance resets at each renewal, every month on your subscription date (see Renewal). Credits you earn as rewards, and credits you bought before top-ups were discontinued, become bonus usage, which takes over once the monthly allowance is used up.
When are credits consumed?
Your monthly usage goes up only when AI works on your behalf. These don't count toward it:
- placing, changing or closing orders, in live or paper trading
- notifications, emails and webhooks sent by your agents
- prices, charts, indicators and portfolio data
- running a backtest (with one exception, see Backtests)
The figures below were observed in September 2026, except agent creations, which are estimated for the code-generation pipeline in use since October 2026. They are given as a share of the Plus monthly allowance (on Pro, each share is three times smaller, and five times smaller on Max). They are indicative: the actual cost depends on each request.
In the chat
Each message uses all the AI work needed to answer it: understanding your request, fetching data, analyzing it, and writing or editing an agent's code.
| What you do | Typical share of the Plus monthly allowance |
|---|---|
| Ask a question or request an analysis | About 0.4%, usually under 1% |
| Create or edit an agent | About 1% (October 2026 estimate), more for a complex agent |
| Dictate a message by voice | About 0.2% per minute of audio |
| Start a live voice conversation | About 0.6% per session, plus the messages exchanged |
| Import a demo portfolio from a screenshot or file | Under 0.1% |
From Claude Code, Codex, Claude or ChatGPT, through AI connections, reading your data doesn't count toward your monthly usage. Tools that put Obside's AI to work, such as building an agent, count the same way as in the chat.
Running agents
An agent adds to your monthly usage only when its own logic calls AI. Trading itself is free: nothing is counted per order, trade or notification.
- Rule-based agents act on precise conditions: price levels, indicators, schedules, portfolio rules. They use nothing while they run, whatever they trade or send, unless they follow an X account (see below). Most agents work this way.
- AI-powered agents ask Obside's AI to read, research or decide while they run: for example to summarize the news, judge a post, research a company on the web or pick assets. Each of these AI steps counts when it runs.
| Event in a running agent | Share of the Plus monthly allowance |
|---|---|
| An AI analysis or decision | Usually under 0.1%, more with a more capable model or web research |
| A web search within an AI analysis | About 0.15% per search |
| A news search | Well under 0.01% |
| A news or alternative-data event checked against the agent's condition | Under 0.01% per event checked, whether or not it matches (most unrelated events are filtered out first, for free) |
| A post from an X account the agent follows | Under 0.1% per post, counted once even if several of your agents follow the account |
| Orders, trades, notifications, webhooks, prices and data | Free |
Posts from Telegram channels are free. Obside interrupts a single AI analysis once it has used about 6% of the Plus monthly allowance.
What makes an AI-powered agent use more:
- How often its AI step runs. An agent that analyzes the market on every 1-minute candle adds to your usage every minute, while one that runs once a day does so once a day.
- The AI model. More capable models cost more per step. When an agent lets you choose its model, its settings show the relative cost as $, $$ or $$$.
- Research. Web research costs more than a news search.
- What it listens to. A listener counts each event it receives, so a busy X account or news topic costs more than a quiet one.
For reference, an AI-powered agent used about 0.4% of the Plus monthly allowance on a typical day, and about 6% or less on 9 days out of 10.
Backtests
Running a backtest doesn't count toward your monthly usage (backtests require a paid plan). The exception is agents that analyze the posts of an X account with AI: in a backtest, each replayed analysis counts like a live one, so a long backtest of such an agent can use a large share of the allowance.
Weekly brief: on paid plans, the weekly portfolio brief is included and doesn't count toward your monthly usage. On the Free plan, it uses credits you bought earlier, if any remain.
When you run out of credits
Running out now means reaching 100% of your monthly usage, once any bonus usage is spent too. Until the next reset:
- AI actions are paused: new messages to the assistant, agent creations and the AI steps of your agents.
- Rule-based agents keep running: they don't use AI.
- AI-powered agents keep running. Obside closes and cancels nothing because of the limit, and their stops and coded exits keep working. Only their AI steps go unanswered, so no decision that depends on AI is taken until the reset, an exit included. If you would rather not stay invested without AI, stop the agent and choose to close its positions: that closes the trades it opened and cancels its pending orders, but anything it bought with simple orders stays in your portfolio.
- Listeners skip events. News, alternative-data and X-post listeners skip new events until the reset.
- AI calls are answered again at the reset. What each agent does then depends on how it is built: one that gives up after a few failed AI calls may not try again, so check its activity after the reset.
Obside warns you when 20%, then 5%, of your monthly usage is left (bonus usage included), in the app, by push and by email, with the AI-powered agents concerned and the time of the reset. To keep AI for the agents that matter most, stop the ones you need least, or move to a plan with more AI usage.
Renewal
Your monthly allowance resets at each renewal, every month on your subscription date, and the gauge goes back to 0%. Yearly plans work the same way: the usage resets every month on the day you subscribed. If you subscribed on the 29th, 30th or 31st, the reset falls on the last day of shorter months. Unused usage doesn't roll over to the next month.
The Free plan includes no AI usage allowance.
Bonus usage
Some credits sit outside the monthly allowance and act as bonus usage:
- credits earned as rewards, such as an approved listing in the Library or your birthday gift
- credits you bought before top-ups were discontinued (see Buying more credits)
Obside uses bonus usage automatically once your monthly usage reaches 100%, so AI keeps working until the reset. Rewards don't expire, and purchased credits expire one year after purchase.
Allocation per plan
- Free: no AI usage allowance
- Plus: a monthly allowance that covers about 100 agent creations
- Pro: about 300 agent creations a month, three times Plus
- Max: about 500 agent creations a month, five times Plus
Monthly and yearly billing get the same monthly allowance. These are standard allowances: a yearly subscription paid when its plan included more AI usage keeps that larger allowance until its year ends, and a Plus subscription taken before Pro and Max came back keeps its allowance until its next renewal. Your usage gauge always measures against the allowance you actually have. For the full breakdown, see Pricing.
Buying more credits
Extra credits can no longer be bought. Top-ups have been discontinued, so your plan's monthly allowance, plus any bonus usage, is what you can use. Pro and Max include three and five times the AI usage of Plus.
Credits you bought before the change remain usable as bonus usage until they expire, one year after purchase, even if your plan ends.