# Step & AI credit usage

Relay.app measures usage across two dimensions:

1. Number of **steps** completed per month
2. Number of **AI credits** used per month

Our [plans](/workspace-and-account/billing-and-plans.md) let you pick and adjust the amount of monthly step and AI credit limits that fit your needs.

## What counts as a step

A step is consumed every time...

1. an **action in another app** has completed (e.g. sending a Slack message or updating a HubSpot contact)
2. a **built-in action** has completed (including [AI steps](/ai/ai-steps.md) and [scraping a website](/built-in-actions/scrape-text-from-website.md))
3. a **Wait for object to match rule** step is completed
4. a **human-in-the-loop** step is activated (i.e. the initial notification has been sent)

### Exceptions

The following steps \*don't\* consume step credits when completed:

* **Triggers** (neither polling or kicking off runs consume step credits)
* **End run** steps
* [**Wait for time**](/flow-control/wait-steps.md#wait-for-time) steps
* [**Transform data**](/built-in-actions/transform-data.md) steps
* **Path rule evaluations** (only steps inside paths are consuming step credits)
* **Loop evaluations**

## What AI credits are used for

[AI credits](/ai/ai-credits.md) are a single pool of credits that can be used to perform AI-powered actions using any supported model provider (e.g. OpenAI, Anthropic's Claude, Google Gemini, Elevenlabs).

In addition to [AI steps](/ai/ai-steps.md), AI credits are used for a number of other step types that have a meaningful variable cost component, including:

* [Web scraping](/built-in-actions/scrape-text-from-website.md)
* [Audio transcription & TTS](/ai/audio-transcription.md)
* [Image generation](/ai/generating-images-with-ai.md)

### How do I know whether a step uses AI credits?

Steps that use AI credits are clearly marked as such in the step menu. In cases where you can manually specify the AI model, the model picker will show whether AI credits are used (when you [connect your own](/ai/ai-steps.md#how-to-connect-a-model) model provider account, this won't be the case).

<div align="left"><figure><img src="/files/t5SK5kExek0eCcIfJp5N" alt="" width="375"><figcaption><p>Steps that consume AI credits have the 'AI credits' badge in the menu</p></figcaption></figure> <figure><img src="/files/GRG82hm1n1u22arNPzal" alt="" width="375"><figcaption><p>The 'AI credits' badge in the model picker</p></figcaption></figure></div>

### How do I know how many AI credits will be used?

It depends! [Learn more about this here](/ai/ai-credits.md#what-can-i-do-with-1-ai-credit).

### Good to know

{% hint style="info" %}

* Testing is free up to reasonable limits. [Learn more](/running-workflows/testing.md)
* AI credits are consumed in addition to regular step credits. Every step always consumes a step credit. AI credits are only used in the cases above, in addition to the step credit the step consumes.
* AI credit usage might (drastically) vary across runs for the same step depending on the data/context in a workflow run. [Learn more](/ai/ai-credits.md#about-tokens)
  {% endhint %}

## Insights in step and AI credit usage

### Overall usage in the current billing cycle

You can see how many step and AI credits have been used thus far in the current billing cycle in the bottom-left of the sidebar. It also shows when usage will reset back to 0.

<figure><img src="/files/p840VRHaDa7J4yTWSRMv" alt=""><figcaption><p>The widget on the bottom-left on the <a href="https://run.relay.app/dashboard">Home screen</a> shows how many Steps and AI credits are used across the workspace in the current billing cycle.</p></figcaption></figure>

### Workflow-specific usage

In the [Workflows](https://run.relay.app/workflows) view you can see how many steps and AI credits are used for a given workflow in the current billing cycle.

{% hint style="info" %}
To sort workflows by # of step or AI credits used, click on any of the headers. [Here's a shortcut](https://run.relay.app/workflows?sortBy=STEPS_USED\&direction=DESC)
{% endhint %}

<figure><img src="/files/b8lIM2Aiz3WLU2RJCckh" alt=""><figcaption><p>In the <a href="https://run.relay.app/workflows?sortBy=STEPS_USED&#x26;direction=DESC">Workflows view</a> you can see how many Steps and AI credits are used by a specific Workflow in the current billing cycle</p></figcaption></figure>

### Run-specifc usage

#### From the run view

When in the run view for a specific workflow run, you can see how many step and AI credits were consumed in this run, as well as how many AI credits were consumed for the relevant steps.

<figure><img src="/files/Y6WrOhzMZ4Y35oDXdvPU" alt=""><figcaption><p>The Run view for a specific run shows the Step and AI credit usage for this run, as well as for individual steps</p></figcaption></figure>

#### From the runs page in the workspace

The [runs view](https://run.relay.app/runs) shows how many step and AI credits were used by recently completed runs.

<figure><img src="/files/lJBmthN4f5ps6kqYDkJD" alt=""><figcaption><p>The <a href="https://run.relay.app/runs">runs view</a> shows how many steps and AI credits were used by recently completed runs.</p></figcaption></figure>


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