Credits

This page explains how credits are calculated, when they are deducted and where to track your balance. For credit packages, prices and the purchase steps, see Buying credits and billing.

Actions that spend credits

You spend credits when you run a study. In almost every method, the number of synthetic consumers (personas) in the population has the biggest effect on the cost.

Creating a population doesn’t spend credits, but some steps require a minimum balance. To create a General Research study in the New Research flow, you need at least 500 credits, whether you use a new or an existing population. To create a new population in Fashion and Ad Testing, you need at least 50 credits. Quick Research has no minimum; your balance only needs to cover the study’s estimate.

Argus asks for your approval before every step that spends credits; with Autopilot on, it goes ahead without asking. For details, see Approvals and Autopilot.

Credits you buy don’t expire. Credits that the SCL team adds to your account may have an expiry date; expired credits are removed from your balance and your totals.

Credit formulas by method

In the table, P is the number of price points (including any custom prices you add manually), F is the number of features, and persona is the number of personas in the population the study runs on. Abbreviations in the method names: WTP, willingness to pay; MaxDiff, best–worst scaling; CBC, Choice-Based Conjoint. The examples are the same as those on the method pages.

• Feature Price Impact appears as Feature Value Analysis on the design and report screens. Each feature adds (P + 5) credits per persona. With the same population and price ladder, a Price Analysis costs 6 × 100 = 600 credits, while the example study costs 3,900 credits.
• In Competitive Analysis, the number of competitors doesn’t change the credits. In Fashion, the study extends the price ladder above your highest price; P is the number of price points on the extended ladder. This is why, in Fashion, Credit Usage looks larger than Price Point × Person Count.
• In a focus group, each response in a reaction round also costs 10 credits. A session can have at most 200 responses; a 200-response session costs 2,000 credits in total.
• In Ad Testing, the ad length is rounded up: a 61-second ad counts as 2 minutes. An image ad counts as 1 minute.
• In Quick Research, the formula follows the vertical you choose in the Research Type field. For example, a multiple-choice survey costs questions × persona in General Research and 5 × persona in Fashion. For Dynamic Conjoint in Fashion, Quick Research shows an estimate of P × persona; the credits deducted are (P + 2) × persona, which is 2 × persona more than the estimate. If your balance covers the estimate but is below (P + 2) × persona, the study fails without generating responses.
• In General Research, for Price Analysis, Choice-Based Conjoint (CBC), Feature Price Impact and Priority Ranking studies, the credits deducted are based on the number of responses the study saves (1 credit per response). The amount deducted can therefore differ from the estimate.
• For Dynamic Conjoint in General Research, Credit Usage shows P × persona, and your balance must cover this amount for the study to start. When the study completes, however, 1 credit per persona is deducted. Quick Research calculates the estimate the same way.

When credits are estimated, deducted and refunded

Estimate

In most methods, the estimated credits appear before you click Start, on the Research Preview screen, in the Credit Usage row of the Experiment Summary card. The value takes the form “balance/estimate”. For example, 1.250/400 means your balance is 1,250 credits and the study’s estimated cost is 400 credits.

On some screens, the estimate appears elsewhere:

Balance checks and deduction

• Credits aren’t reserved. Clicking Start only checks your balance. For every study except Comparison in General Research, the balance is checked again when response generation starts; if it doesn’t cover the estimate at that point, the study fails without generating responses and no credits are deducted.
• Credits are deducted after the personas’ responses are saved. In General Research, for methods other than Comparison, the report is then prepared in a separate analysis step; credits are deducted before that step.
• The balance is checked again at deduction. If other studies have spent your balance in the meantime, Multiple-Choice Survey, Price Analysis, Competitive Analysis, Feature Price Impact and Priority Ranking studies in General Research fail after the responses have been generated, and no credits are deducted. Studies in Fashion and Ad Testing, and Comparison studies in General Research, complete instead; in that case, the credits deducted may differ from the estimate, or no credits may be deducted at all.
• In a focus group, you pay per response. No lump-sum fee is charged at the start of the session. Before a question is sent, the cost of the whole round is compared with your balance; the credits for each participant’s response are deducted before that response starts being written. If a response is retried, you aren’t charged a second time.

Refunds

For methods other than the focus group, no credits are deducted for a study that fails before its responses are saved. Credits that have already been deducted, however, are not refunded automatically.

• In Fashion and Ad Testing, no credits are deducted for a failed study. When you rerun the study with Retry, credits are deducted only if that attempt succeeds.
• In General Research, to rerun a study that failed during response generation, click Back to Preview and then Start again. For a Price Analysis, Feature Price Impact, Choice-Based Conjoint or Priority Ranking study that stopped partway, only the responses generated in the rerun are charged; no credits are deducted for the responses saved in the failed attempt. For Dynamic Conjoint, 1 credit per persona is deducted when the study completes.
• In General Research, if a study fails at the analysis step after its responses have been saved and its credits deducted, the deducted credits are not refunded.
• For Price Analysis and Feature Price Impact in General Research, if the analysis step failed, click Back to Preview and then Start again. Only the analysis runs again; the personas aren’t asked again and no credits are deducted a second time.
• For Priority Ranking and Choice-Based Conjoint in General Research, if the analysis step failed, click Start again on the Research Preview screen. If every persona’s response was saved, the saved responses are reused, only the analysis runs again and no credits are deducted a second time. If any persona’s response wasn’t saved, restarting asks all the personas again and deducts the credits again.
• For the Multiple-Choice Survey and Dynamic Conjoint in General Research, if the analysis step failed, send a request in the Billing category from the Support page before you restart the study. For the Multiple-Choice Survey, restarting asks the personas again and deducts the credits again; for Dynamic Conjoint, 1 credit per persona is deducted again.
• Deleting a report doesn’t give back the credits spent on it.

Organisation credits

An organisation is a company account, set up by the SCL team, whose members share a common credit pool. If you’re a member of an organisation, you spend from the same pool as the other members. While you’re in an organisation, your personal balance isn’t used; the Remaining credits: line in the sidebar shows the organisation’s balance.

Organisation members see these differences on the Credits & Usage page:

• (Organization) appears next to the Total Credit Amount line, and the Organization line below it shows the organisation’s name.
• The Buy Credits button and the Purchase History section are hidden.
• The page shows the note “Credits are managed at the organization level. Please contact the system administrator to add credits.”

The SCL team adds credits to the organisation’s balance. The organisation’s admin can see how many credits each member has spent in the member table on the Settings › Organization Management page. For membership and roles, see Account and organisation.

The credits card in the sidebar

The card at the bottom of the sidebar shows your balance on every page:

• Your balance on the Remaining credits: line.
• A bar showing how much of your total credits you have spent.
• A View usage link that opens the Credits & Usage page.

When your balance is 500 credits or less, a red Add credits! warning replaces the Remaining credits: label. Because you also need at least 500 credits to create a General Research study in the New Research flow, treat this warning as an early signal and plan to top up. 500 credits is the cost of a 50-persona Comparison, or of testing a 30-second ad with 50 personas.

When the sidebar is collapsed, the card becomes a ring icon; hover over it to see your remaining and used credits under the Credit Usage heading. For organisation members, (Org) appears next to the heading and the organisation’s name below it. During a focus group session, the balance updates as soon as a question is sent, without your having to refresh the page.

The Credits & Usage page

You can open the page in three ways:

• Click View usage on the credits card in the sidebar.
• Choose Plan & Usage from the user menu at the top right.
• Open Settings › Credits & Usage.

Remaining Credits is Total Credits minus Used Credits, and matches the number in the sidebar. For example, if 3,250 of 10,000 total credits have been spent, your remaining credits are 6,750.

The Your Reports list shows the name and creation date of the last 10 studies you created; clicking a row opens the Research list. Studies in Fashion and Ad Testing, other than focus groups, don’t appear in this list; use the Reports page for all your reports.

This page doesn’t show the credits spent on each study; check a study’s cost in the Credit Usage value before you start it. Purchase statuses are explained on the Buying credits and billing page.

When you don’t have enough credits

To add credits, go to Credits & Usage › Buy Credits. Organisation members contact their organisation admin or the SCL team instead.

Tips

• The number of personas multiplies the cost directly. A population of 200 personas instead of 100 doubles the credits in every method except the focus group.
• Limit price points and features to the ones you need. In Price Analysis, each extra price point adds 1 credit per persona; in Feature Price Impact, each extra feature adds (P + 5) credits per persona.
• If you start several studies at once, add up the total yourself. Because credits aren’t reserved, each preview compares only its own estimate with your balance. If your balance runs out while studies are running, a later study may fail without generating responses or, in General Research, after the responses have been generated.

Related pages

• Buying credits and billing
• Account and organisation
• Choosing the right method
• Starting a new study
• Approvals and Autopilot