Token budget
Who this is for: teachers · Where: shown next to every AI feature, and in Settings.
What this page is for
Every AI feature spends tokens from a shared pool. This explains what costs what, so the number stops being mysterious.
Where the pool comes from
The school's pool grows with each paying pupil. Your director can also give individual teachers their own allowance, and a teacher can buy a personal top-up.
Spending draws in this order:
- Your personal allowance, if the director set one
- Your personal top-up, if you bought one
- The school pool
Tokens you bought — or that your director gave you out of a referral balance — stay yours until you spend them. They are not wiped at the start of a month, they do not lapse at the end of a school year, and they are not affected when the school pool is recalculated.
Only the school pool and a director-set allowance reset with the billing period. Your top-up sits outside that: it is bought, not granted. If several top-ups are sitting there, the oldest is spent first.
What spends tokens
| Feature | Rough cost |
|---|---|
| Exam or homework generation | Moderate, scales with question count |
| Lesson plan | Moderate to high, depends on the tier |
| Presentation | Scales with slide count |
| Image | Fixed per image, varies by tier |
| Audio and video | Script plus voice; the voice part dominates |
| Concept map | Low to moderate |
| Marking open answers | Small per pupil, multiplied by the class |
| Weekly summaries, report comments | Small per pupil |
The estimate is always shown first
Every generator shows the minimum tokens and what will be left, before the button does anything. Where a whole class is involved — marking an exam with AI — the total for the class is shown, not just the per-pupil figure.
For audio and video the estimate is a minimum: the script is predictable, but the spoken length is not known until it is generated. Actual use is metered on completion.
Quality tiers
Some features offer tiers. A higher tier uses a stronger model: better reasoning and structure, more tokens. The tier picker shows the minimum for each, so the choice is informed rather than a gamble.
Running out
When the pool cannot cover a generation, the button is refused before spending anything rather than failing halfway.
If a generation somehow exceeds what was left, the excess becomes debt rather than being granted free — and the next top-up settles that debt first.
Rules and limits
- Estimates are minimums, not caps, for anything whose length is unknown up front.
- A failed generation can still have cost tokens if the model produced output that was then rejected.
- The pool is shared. A colleague generating a large exam reduces what is left for everyone, unless your director allocates per teacher.
- Marking with AI turned off spends nothing.
Troubleshooting
"The generate button is disabled." The estimate exceeds what is left. Try a lower tier, or ask your director.
"My allowance says 0." No personal allocation is set, so you draw from the school pool.
"The pool dropped without me generating anything." It is shared with colleagues, and it is recalculated when pupil subscriptions change.