AI Budgets and AI credits are how LiveAgent measures and controls what your AI agents spend. Credits are the underlying currency for every action an AI agent takes, and budgets let you cap how much can be spent per month. Both are managed under Configuration > AI > AI Budgets.
What are AI credits?
An AI credit is the unit that an AI agent consumes when it acts on a ticket. Every action an AI agent performs — reading the ticket messages, adding a tag, resolving the ticket, transferring it, and so on — is a tool call, and each tool call draws from your account's pool of credits.
The rule is simple: 1 tool call = 1 credit. One MCP tool call made by an AI agent always spends exactly one credit, no matter which tool it is. So a run that reads a ticket and then applies one tag uses 2 credits; a run that reads a ticket, adds a tag, and resolves it uses 3 credits.
Because credits map one-to-one to tool calls, you can estimate the cost of a workflow simply by counting how many actions the AI needs to take per ticket, and multiplying by the number of tickets you expect it to process.
What are AI budgets?
An AI budget is a named, monthly cap on the number of tool calls (and therefore credits) that AI agents may spend. Budgets let you set spending boundaries without having to watch every run individually.
Key things to know about budgets:
- They are named. Each budget has a name (and an optional description) so you can recognize it when assigning it to a rule. For example, you might create separate budgets per team or per workflow — one for auto-tagging, one for routing, one for a specific department.
- They set a monthly limit. A budget defines the maximum number of tool calls allowed within a calendar month.
- They reset every month. Each budget's usage counter automatically starts fresh at the beginning of every calendar month — you do not need to reset it manually.
- They are assigned per rule action. When you add a Run AI agent action to a rule, you select both the AI agent and the budget its tool calls should draw from. Choosing a budget is required, which means every AI agent run is always tied to a specific budget.
You can create as many budgets as you need and assign each rule action to the appropriate one, so you can track and limit spend per workflow independently.
How budgets spend credits
When an AI agent runs under a budget and makes a tool call, that single call counts against two independent limits at the same time:
- The budget's monthly cap — the call adds 1 to that budget's usage for the current calendar month.
- Your account's credit pool — the call deducts 1 credit from your overall balance.
A run continues making tool calls until it finishes its work — or until it hits one of these limits. If the assigned budget reaches its monthly cap, the run fails with the Monthly AI budget exhausted reason. If your account's overall credit balance is depleted, the run fails with the Credit pool exhausted reason. For more on run outcomes, see Monitoring AI agent runs.
Tip: If runs frequently fail because a budget's cap is reached, either increase that budget's monthly limit, or simplify your flows so the AI needs fewer tool calls per ticket. Granting an agent only the tools it actually needs also helps keep spending down.
How much do credits cost?
To help you get started, every LiveAgent account receives 300,000 AI credits for free. On top of that, a ready-to-use Default budget is created for you with a monthly limit of 300,000 tool calls, so you can put AI agents to work immediately without configuring anything first.
That is a generous allowance: since 1 tool call equals 1 credit, 300,000 credits cover 300,000 AI agent actions — enough to run substantial automation across your ticket queue at no additional cost.
Note: AI credits are not currently sold as a separate purchase — the 300,000 credits are included with your account as part of getting the feature into your hands. We recommend keeping an eye on your balance (see below) and designing your flows to use tool calls efficiently so your free credits go as far as possible.
Monitoring your usage
Under Configuration > AI > AI Budgets you can see your remaining credit balance, the usage of each budget for the current month, and an estimated credit runway — roughly how many days of AI agent activity your remaining credits will cover at your current budgeted rate. Reviewing this regularly helps you catch a workflow that is spending faster than expected before it runs out.