Academy
7. Handling Credit Shortages and Using Your Own API Keys
Understand your options when credits run out — upgrading, waiting for renewal, or leveraging team allowances — and learn how to register your own provider API keys on eligible plans.
When your credit balance hits zero, OUPI gives you three clear paths forward:
- Upgrade your plan — Head to the Subscription page, pick a larger plan, and confirm. Upgrades apply immediately, so your new allowance is available right away.
- Wait for renewal — Your monthly credit allowance resets automatically on your renewal date. If you're close to that date, patience may be enough.
- Team allowances — If you belong to a team, the team administrator can grant you a monthly credit allowance drawn from the team plan. If you are the admin, you can redistribute credits among members based on who needs them most.
Your current balance is always visible in the top bar, and the Subscription page shows your plan, monthly allowance, and renewal date — so you can anticipate shortages before they happen.
To keep costs down, use a balanced model for everyday tasks and reserve frontier models for high-stakes work. Agent missions with a clear, focused goal consume far fewer credits than open-ended ones. Each mission and media job shows its exact cost afterwards, so review those numbers to spot patterns.
As a team administrator, you have a powerful lever: the shared team allowance. Your team plan provides a pool of credits that you distribute as monthly allowances to each member. You can monitor per-member consumption from Team Management — who uses what, and which tools — and adjust allowances accordingly.
If a team member runs out of personal credits, their team allowance keeps them working. A member's balance can combine both a personal and a team allowance, so the two complement each other.
On eligible plans, you can bypass OUPI credits entirely for certain models by registering your own provider API keys. When configured, requests using those models go through your own keys and are not debited from your OUPI credit balance.
To set this up, go to Settings and enter your provider key(s). This is especially useful for teams with heavy usage on specific models — it lets you control costs directly with the provider while still benefiting from OUPI's interface, tools, and shared resources.
Remember: credits are only debited when an operation succeeds. A failed generation costs you nothing. So don't hesitate to experiment — you're never charged for errors.
Open your Subscription page now. Check your current plan, monthly allowance, and renewal date. Then navigate to Settings and look for the option to register your own provider API keys (available on eligible plans). Finally, visit Team Management to review your members' credit consumption.
When credits run out, you can upgrade immediately, wait for your monthly renewal, or lean on team allowances. As an admin, distribute the shared team pool wisely by monitoring per-member usage. On eligible plans, registering your own provider API keys lets specific model requests bypass OUPI credits entirely. And remember — failed operations are never charged, so the platform always bills fairly.