Plans and credits

What a credit is, what spends it, what each plan adds and costs, and what happens when the balance runs low.

What a credit is

Every update of a source spends credits. It is how TileSet pays for the calls to Google, YouTube and the rest, and it is why page views are never counted: showing a widget costs nothing, updating its content does.

What an update costs depends on the source type. Most sources cost the least. YouTube and Twitch cost about twice as much and X three times as much, because every X update is a paid request. Google reviews cost the most, because the review data comes from a paid provider. Testimonials cost nothing: there is nothing to fetch, so they never spend credits. The cost is shown on each source row (“N credits per update”) and in the speed picker, before you choose.

The balance and the monthly allowance

Every plan, the free one included, adds an allowance to your balance once a month: on the free plan on the monthly anniversary of when you signed up, on a paid plan when each monthly invoice is paid. A refill never takes the balance above three months’ allowance (plus recent top-ups), so an idle account cannot bank without limit.

• Free: 60 credits a month, plus 60 more in your first month as a one-time bonus. Adding a card (nothing is charged, and you can remove it) gives another 60, once per account (and once per card).
• Paid plans: Starter adds 500 credits a month for $9, Growth 1,500 for $19, Pro 5,000 for $49 and Scale 15,000 for $99. Prices are in US dollars a month, before tax, which checkout adds for your country where it applies. Choose one under Plans; Monthly cap, top-ups and billing explains checkout, tax and changing plan. Accounts made before paid plans opened got 500 extra credits once, as an early account bonus.

What each plan unlocks

Pricing shows the same table next to what each plan is for.

• Prices are in US dollars, before tax: checkout adds tax for your country where it applies.
• Google reviews update at most once a day, on every plan.
• X has its own fastest speeds, in the Fastest for X row.
• * On Scale, up to 10 X sources can update every 15 minutes; more X sources update at most every hour.
• Updating on demand covers Update now, webhook URLs for your own systems and a manual-only mode.

Why some things are locked

Each lock gives its reason where the reason is cost.

• Faster updates: each update spends credits and asks the platform for new content, and faster updates do more of both, so the plan sets how often a feed can update. X has its own, stricter steps: each X update is a paid request, so faster updates are on higher plans.
• 3 live sources on Free: every live source gets free refreshes and thumbnail renewals even when its credits run out, and that adds up.
• Update now, manual-only mode and webhooks: each one asks the platform for fresh content straight away and spends credits, so they are kept to paid plans.
• Analytics: see how often each widget is shown, opened and clicked, and which sites show it. Each report reads through every view your widgets record. On the free plan, the Analytics screen shows the 7-day total of how often your widgets were shown. The last 7 days of Link in bio clicks and views are free; reading 30 or 90 days back scans more stored data.
• The Share a testimonial link: a public link takes entries from strangers, so we store them, screen them for spam and hold them for your approval.
• Review filters, mixed feeds, more Link in bio pages, scheduled and pinned links, choosing your own bio address, your own colour and a picture background on a bio page, hiding the TileSet link: included with the plan the lock names, as part of what paid plans add.

Fair use

A few limits keep TileSet fast for everyone. A real business rarely meets them. When one stops a connect, nothing is connected, nothing is charged, and the message says when you can try again.

• New sources: a free account can connect 8 new live sources in any 7 days, Starter and up 100. This is on top of the live-source limit, so a few wrong ones are fine. Demo sources, testimonials and reconnecting a source you already have do not count, and removing a source does not give a connect back. Why: each new source is fetched from its platform straight away.
• Google places: a free account can connect 10 different Google places in any 30 days, removed ones included. Reconnecting a place you already used is fine. Paid plans have no limit. Why: Google reviews come from a paid review data service, and every new place costs a full gather of its reviews.
• X accounts: a free account can connect 10 different X accounts in any 30 days, removed ones included. Reconnecting an account you already used is fine. Paid plans have no limit. On top of that, free accounts across TileSet can connect only a limited number of new X accounts a day, a number shared by everyone; past it a connect says X is temporarily unavailable and to try again after 00:00 UTC. Paid accounts are never refused. X sources already connected keep updating. Why: every new X account is looked up on a paid X data service.
• New accounts on a busy network: when many accounts were created from the same address or network on the same day, a new account from it can connect 1 Google place for its first 3 days, or until you add a card under Credits (nothing is charged). Signing in and every other source work as usual.
• Business name searches: 40 a day per account and 80 per network, starting again at 00:00 UTC. A pasted Google Maps link or Place ID is not a search, so paste the link when you have it.
• Monthly share of X and Google updates: X posts and Google reviews come from paid data services with monthly limits that TileSet shares. When this month's share runs low, those updates slow down for everyone, free accounts first, and once it is used they wait until 00:00 UTC on the 1st. Widgets keep their last content and nothing is charged for an update that waits. See Slower this month.
• New Google places each day: new Google places are fetched up to a daily number shared by everyone on TileSet, and up to 2 a day for one free account. Past either, a new Google source on a free account still connects, and its reviews arrive after 00:00 UTC. Nothing is charged until then, and its source row says "Waiting for tomorrow". Paid accounts never wait, and sources already fetched keep updating as usual.

When credits run low

TileSet projects what your chosen speeds will spend until the next refill. If that is more than your balance, all your feeds slow down together until the refill, and each source row says how often it really updates and what that costs (“About every 3 days until Nov 1 (set to daily) · 10 credits a month”). When the balance cannot pay for any update, the sources wait for credits. In both cases your widgets keep showing their last posts, and nothing is deleted.

Four ways out: choose slower speeds, top up, move to a bigger plan, or wait for the refill. If your balance cannot pay for a new source’s first update, the connect is refused, and the dashboard tells you before you start. At the monthly cap a new source still connects, but it waits to update until the cap resets at the start of the next month or you raise it.

Where to look

• Credits shows the balance, the allowance, the next refill date, this month’s spend and the cap, and Credits added and spent: allowances, top-ups, manual updates, and automatic updates (the scheduled ones and a new source’s first update) added up per source and day (“@yourbakery: 3 automatic updates”). Dates on Sources and Credits use the time zone you pick under Credits, so the refill date reads the same on both. Plans compares the plans. Each screen shows your balance at the top and links to the other.
• Each source row shows its cost and when it last updated.
• An account can connect up to 25 sources and hold up to 200 widgets. A free account can have 3 live sources (demo sources and testimonials do not count); one that already has more keeps them.
• On the free plan, a source nobody has viewed for 14 days pauses until its next view (details).