How Credits Work on SongTools.ai (And How to Not Waste Them)

The Short Version

Every tool on SongTools.ai costs a fixed number of credits, shown directly on the "run" button before you click it. You're never charged without seeing the number first, and nothing runs partway and charges you for a failed attempt — if a tool fails to produce a result, you don't lose the credits for that run.

Why Credits Instead of a Flat Subscription

Different tools cost different amounts to run because they genuinely require different amounts of underlying processing — a quick key and BPM detection is a lighter lift than a full multi-track comparison. Charging per tool, per use, means you're only ever paying for what you actually run, instead of a flat monthly fee whether you use the platform twice or two hundred times.

Where Credits Actually Go

If you feel like your credit balance is disappearing faster than expected, it's almost always one of these:

• Re-running the same tool with small tweaks. Each run is a fresh charge — there's no "edit and retry for free." If you're going to change something small (a different tone setting on Song Feedback, for example), decide on your settings before you click run rather than experimenting run by run.
• Uploading to the wrong tool. Uploading a single song to a DJ Mix tool, or an unmixed batch of tracks to a single-file tool, will either fail outright or produce a result you can't use — and it still costs the credit. See the beginner's guide if you're not sure which tool wants what.
• Running several separate tools on the same file one at a time. This isn't wasted exactly — each tool is doing real, different work — but if you already know you want more than one check on the same track, a Flow runs the same set of tools with one upload instead of several, and shows you the running total up front so there's no math to do yourself.

Large Files Cost More on a Few Tools

The DJ Mix tools (tracklist identification and volume leveling) scale their cost with file size, since a two-hour recorded set is genuinely more work to process than a four-minute song. That surcharge is always shown before you commit — you'll never be charged more than what the button said.

What Happens When You Run Out

If you're out of credits, the platform tells you clearly rather than letting you get partway into an upload — you'll see an option to buy more before you lose any progress on what you were doing.

The One Habit Worth Building

Before you click "run" on anything, glance at the credit number next to it. It's small, but it's the entire pricing model — there's no fine print behind it.