AI voice pricing FAQ. No fine print.

Q.01

What is one credit, in plain rupees?

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One credit equals ₹1 at base. Voice-agent usage bills against a single credit pool — a call is 5 credits/minute on Platform (1 credit/minute on BYO), plus 0.5 for recording and an optional 2 for post-call extraction, so 5.5/minute base and 7.5/minute all-in. If you pay in a non-INR currency, Razorpay handles the FX at checkout and we credit the INR-equivalent number of credits to your workspace.

Q.02

Why are BYO credits cheaper than Platform credits?

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In Platform mode we pay Google Cloud for every Gemini token your workspace consumes, so the credit rate (5 credits/minute on voice calls, plus 0.5 for recording and an optional 2 for post-call extraction) covers both the model cost and our orchestration. In BYO mode you connect your own Gemini API key from Google AI Studio, Google bills you directly, and we only charge for the platform layer — 1 credit/minute on voice calls (recording 0.5, extraction 1.5). That is roughly 80% off the per-call rate you see on the pricing page.

Q.03

When exactly do you charge me for a call?

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Voice-agent calls are billed atomically per call, not per second. We measure the duration the media session is open, round up to the next whole minute, multiply by the applicable per-minute rate, and post a single ledger entry when the call ends. A 4-minute-and-3-second call is charged as 5 minutes. Recordings and feature-extraction credits (transcript, summary, intent) are folded into the same ledger entry so you do not see three transactions for one call.

Q.04

What does Google charge me on top in BYO mode?

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In BYO mode Google bills your Google Cloud account directly for every Gemini API call your workspace makes — speech-to-text, the conversational LLM turn, and TTS output. Vanie AI never sees that bill and never marks it up. Plan to pay Google roughly the cost of Gemini 2.5 Flash usage at published rates; we surface a 7-day rolling estimate in the BYO dashboard so the number is not a surprise on the 1st of the month.

Q.05

Are there transaction fees on top of the plan price?

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Razorpay charges a payment-processing fee that we pass through at cost: 2% for domestic Indian cards, UPI, and net banking, and 3.5% for international cards. The fee appears as a separate line item on your Razorpay invoice — it is not part of the credit price, and it does not buy credits. GST at 18% applies on the plan price, not on the Razorpay fee.

Q.06

What happens if my balance hits zero mid-call?

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Calls in flight are never cut mid-stream. We check your balance at the start of each billed minute; if the next minute would push you negative, the call drops cleanly at that minute boundary with a polite agent farewell. For voice agents we also surface a low-balance warning at 10% remaining so you can top up before the next call rather than after.

Q.07

Can I get a refund on credits I have not used?

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Credits and subscription payments are non-refundable except where Indian consumer law or your local jurisdiction explicitly requires otherwise. Genuine billing errors — duplicate charges, mis-metered calls, downtime credits — are always reversed within 7 business days when you write to contact@vanieai.com. Credits do not expire while your workspace is active; top-up packs and bonus credits never expire either, and credits are consumed oldest-first.

Q.08

Do credits expire?

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No — credits do not expire while your workspace is active. Each billing cycle your plan deposits its monthly credit allowance into your wallet; anything unused rolls forward, and top-up packs never expire. Credits are consumed oldest-first. You are simply charged again at your next renewal for the next month’s allowance — there is no use-it-or-lose-it clock.

Q.09

How do I upgrade or downgrade my plan?

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Upgrades take effect immediately. You are charged a prorated amount for the remainder of the current cycle and we grant prorated credits at the same time, so you can start using the new tier the moment Razorpay confirms the payment. Downgrades take effect at the start of your next billing cycle — no refund of the current cycle, and no clawback of credits you have already received. The proration policy is fixed in platform_settings under plans.proration.

Q.10

Can I switch from Platform to BYO mid-month?

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Yes. Add a Gemini API key in Settings → AI Provider, validate it, and flip the workspace to BYO mode. Everything billed before the switch stays at the Platform rate; everything billed after uses BYO rates. Your existing credit balance is not touched, not pro-rated, and not refunded — it simply lasts longer because BYO credits burn 4–8× slower for the same workload.

Q.11

Do trial credits work for BYO?

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Yes. The 500-credit trial grant applies against the platform fee in either mode. In BYO mode the trial credits stretch much further because the per-minute rates are lower, but Google still bills your own Google Cloud account for the underlying Gemini usage. The trial grant cannot be redeemed for cash and is consumed before any paid credits.

Q.12

Is there a permanent free tier?

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There is no perpetual free plan, but every account starts with a free trial of 500 credits (no card) — enough to genuinely try every product. The cheapest paid tier is Starter at ₹999/month (≈ $12) plus 18% GST for India billing; you can pay in INR or with an international card.

Q.13

How accurate is the monthly bill forecast in BYO mode?

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The BYO dashboard forecasts your end-of-month Gemini and platform spend from your last 7 days of usage, weighted uniformly. Our internal target is ±25% accuracy for 80% of BYO tenants — accurate enough to flag a runaway agent, not a substitute for setting Google Cloud quotas. The forecast is recomputed daily and only quotes ranges, never a single number; if you have run for less than 7 days the dashboard says so explicitly.

Q.14

What happens if Gemini goes down?

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By default we do not auto-failover from BYO to Platform when Gemini has an outage. The workspace shows a clear "Gemini temporarily unavailable" message and pauses new calls until the provider recovers. Workspace admins can opt into automatic failover by flipping failover.byo_to_platform_on_provider_outage in admin settings — at the cost of falling back to Platform-rate billing for any traffic served during the outage.

Q.15

Is GST included in the price?

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No. Plan prices on this site are exclusive of GST. We add 18% GST at checkout (CGST + SGST for intra-state customers, IGST for inter-state) and Razorpay issues an automatic, downloadable GST invoice within 48 hours. Top-ups follow the same rule — 18% GST applied at the moment of purchase, never retroactively.

Q.16

Should I top up or upgrade my plan?

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If your usage is steady, upgrade — subscription credits cost less per credit than top-ups. If your usage spikes once (a campaign, a launch week) and then returns to normal, top up. Top-up credits do not expire, so an over-buy on a top-up is preserved against the next renewal; credits are always consumed oldest-first.

Q.17

Can I cancel anytime?

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Yes. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing cycle — there are no further charges, no clawback of granted credits, and no exit fee. You keep full access until the cycle ends and then drop to the free-trial tier with whatever balance you still have. Re-subscribing later does not reset your historical usage or ledger.

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