> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.alvahq.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Understanding Credits > Learn how Alva's credit system works and what uses credits. Alva uses a credit-based billing system. Credits are dollar-backed and displayed as tokens in the interface. Every AI-powered action in Alva costs credits — conversations with Alva, background analysis, discovery searches, and enrichment. ## How credits work * Your plan includes a **monthly credit allocation** that refreshes each billing cycle * Credits are deducted automatically as you use AI features * You can purchase **additional credits** at any time — these never expire * Your balance is visible at **Settings → Billing** ## What uses credits ### AI conversations Every message to Alva costs credits based on the length of the conversation. Longer conversations cost more because more context is processed, but continuing an existing conversation is cheaper than starting a new one. ### Background AI processing These run automatically and cost credits: * **Deal health scoring** — periodic recalculation of every deal's health * **Risk detection** — checking for deals that need attention * **Email analysis** — processing new emails for sentiment, signals, and entities ### Discovery Each company found by a discovery profile costs credits. The rate is tiered — the more companies you discover, the lower the per-company cost. See **Settings → Billing** for current pricing. ### Enrichment When a company is imported, Alva automatically [enriches](/discovery/enrichment) it — searching for contacts, email addresses, and ranking them by seniority. This process uses credits for the data lookups and AI processing involved. ### People Search A [People Search](/discovery/people-search) is **free to run** — finding matching people costs nothing. You're only charged when Alva reveals a person's verified email, and only for people who actually have one, so you never pay for empty results. Use the search's **result limit** to cap how many emails it reveals. ### BDR agent actions All BDR agent tools (sending emails, creating contacts, escalating, drafting replies) are **free**. The agent uses a small amount of credits for AI processing when evaluating each company. ### Email safety checks The AI content safety check that runs before BDR agents send emails costs a small amount of credits per check. ## Monitoring your usage Go to **Settings → Usage** for a detailed breakdown: * **Total spend** — how much you've used this billing period * **Per-feature breakdown** — which features are using the most credits * **Detailed usage logs** — individual AI requests with cost breakdowns * **Trend over time** — how your usage is growing If your credits are running low, check the per-feature breakdown on the Usage page. Discovery searches and enrichment are typically the largest credit consumers. You can pause discovery profiles or BDR agents while you top up.