Credits and billing
How credits work, what common actions cost, top-ups, plan changes, and what happens when credits run out.
Ranktide charges for usage with credits. Your plan includes credits every month. You spend them when Ranktide fetches data for you. Reading data you already have is free.
How credits work
- 1 credit is $0.001 of usage, so 1,000 credits = $1.
- An action costs its raw data cost times your plan's usage markup.
- On subscription plans the markup is 1.28. It covers payment fees, infrastructure and our margin.
- On AppSumo licenses the markup is 1.0, so data is billed at cost.
- Each data call is rounded up to a whole credit.
Credits pay for three things: data from DataForSEO (keywords, rankings, backlinks, maps and AI answers), AI model calls, and pages rendered with JavaScript in site audits. Search Console and GA4 reads, standard site audits and saved results use none.
Plans
| Plan detail | Free | Solo | Growth | Pro | Agency | Scale |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly price | $0 | $19 | $49 | $99 | $199 | $399 |
| Annual price | – | $190 | $490 | $990 | $1,990 | $3,990 |
| Credits | 1,000 credits, once | 10,000 credits a month | 30,000 credits a month | 70,000 credits a month | 150,000 credits a month | 320,000 credits a month |
| Top-up credits | – | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Your own DataForSEO key | – | – | – | – | Yes | Yes |
Annual billing costs 10 times the monthly price, so two months are free. Every limit is on the pricing page.
Plan credits and top-ups
- Plan credits arrive at the start of each billing month. Unused plan credits don't roll over.
- Top-up credits never expire.
- Ranktide spends plan credits first, then top-ups.
- Paid plans can buy top-ups of $10 to $500 at a time, at the plan's markup: $1.28 buys 1,000 credits.
- The Free plan can't buy top-ups. Upgrade to add credits.
Buy top-ups from Billing in the app. Only the organisation owner can manage billing.
What common actions cost
These are estimates on a subscription plan. Ranktide shows the cost before paid work starts and charges what the data actually cost, which is often a little less.
| Action | Credits (estimate) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Keyword search, about 150 ideas | 54 or less | 300 or 500 ideas cost more. Clickstream volumes double the cost. |
| Rank check: 1 keyword, 1 device, top 40 | About 7.5 | 3 reads of the results page. Up to 15 when a read misses and Ranktide checks again. |
| Local map grid: 1 keyword at 1 point | 3 | A 5×5 grid is 25 points: 75 credits per keyword. |
| AI visibility answer: ChatGPT, Gemini or AI Overviews | About 2 | Scheduled checks. Run now answers cost about 6. Claude and Perplexity answers cost far more. |
| Backlink profile with a year of history | About 79 | Larger link lists cost more. |
| Site audit page rendered with JavaScript | 0.6 to 3.8 | The high end is for sites that block the browser. The audit stops before it costs more than the amount held at the start. |
| Site audit page, standard crawl | 0 | Lighthouse checks are extra: about 7 credits each. |
| Search Console and GA4 reads | 0 | Google's data, read with your own connection. |
| Saved results, reports and exports | 0 | Reading what you already collected is free. |
On an AppSumo license, data is billed at cost, so each action uses about 22% fewer credits than shown here.
Scheduled work repeats. For example, 200 keywords on one device, checked weekly, use about 200 × 7.5 × 4 = 6,000 credits a month.
Change your plan
- Upgrade any time from Billing. You pay the prorated difference for the rest of the billing period. The new plan's credits arrive straight away and replace the plan credits left from the old plan. Top-up credits stay.
- Downgrades take effect at the end of the billing period. You keep the current plan until then.
- Cancel any time. Like a downgrade, it takes effect at the end of the period you've paid for, and your organisation then moves to Free.
When credits run out
Ranktide never bills overage. When your balance can't cover an action, it doesn't start:
- One-off actions, like a keyword search, stop with a message and a link to Billing.
- Scheduled rank checks and AI visibility checks skip until you have credits again.
- A site audit with JavaScript rendering starts only if your balance covers the amount it holds.
A few actions settle their cost after they finish, so a balance can dip slightly below zero. Nothing is charged to your card for it.
Your projects and saved results stay readable. To continue, buy a top-up, upgrade, or wait for next month's plan credits.
Usage and invoices
The Billing page has two tabs. Usage shows the credits you've spent, by feature. Invoices lists every payment.
Checkout asks for your business name, billing address and tax ID, such as an EU VAT number, so invoices work for business customers.
Something missing or wrong on this page? Email support@ranktide.io.