What a credit is
On paid plans, usage is metered from real model activity and shown in your account as marked-up customer usage. Your plan includes a monthly usage allowance that resets each billing period; the dashboard shows your percentage used and request-level usage details. Free has a smaller metered Haiku-only allowance and hard-stops before paid usage.
Model routing
Requests default to the fastest model and escalate automatically for complex tasks when model selection is on Auto.
On every paid plan you can choose Haiku, Sonnet, or Opus manually, or leave Auto selected.
Free is Haiku only.
Overage and spend cap
Every paid plan includes monthly AI usage. You can enable usage beyond that pool, billed from real provider cost plus Prescaler's markup.
You set a spend cap. When the cap is reached, HardwarePilot hard-stops. There is no silent model downgrade.
Frontier mode
Frontier mode (Claude Fable 5) works differently depending on your plan, and that's why the toggle for it doesn't appear the same way everywhere.
On Pro and Team, Frontier is a separate opt-in. It doesn't draw from your included monthly pool. Usage is billed through overage instead, so overage must be enabled and under the spend cap for Frontier requests to run.
On Power and Max, Frontier is included in your plan's credit pool by default. There's no separate toggle to turn on, it's just another model available in the picker, metered the same as Haiku, Sonnet, or Opus. Usage only reaches overage once your whole pool (not just a Frontier-specific slice of it) is used up.
FAQ
The project stays local until HardwarePilot needs context. Then that context, including any Agent-read files or datasheet excerpts, goes to Prescaler's proxy and then the model provider.
PDFs are parsed locally. When datasheet grounding is on, text excerpts may be sent as part of prompts.
No. Live HardwarePilot requires sign-in and network access to Prescaler's AI proxy.
Free hard-stops once its monthly pool is used. Paid plans hard-stop when included monthly usage is exhausted unless overage is on; with overage they hard-stop at the spend cap.
Free is metered the same way every paid plan is, from real model cost, it is just a smaller pool and Haiku only. Pro, Power, Max, and Team meter marked-up model cost against their customer-visible allowance and show remaining usage as dollars in your account.
On Team, the workspace owner manages overage, spend cap, and Frontier. Members consume the shared pool under those settings.
Invited users get a one-time starter credit to try premium models beyond Free's Haiku-only pool. It expires after a set window and doesn't apply to Frontier mode. Referring someone who activates their account also earns you a starter credit.