Credit-based pricing
How does pricing work?
For accounts on a credit-based pricing plan, Steady charges for usage, not users, so you only ever pay for what you actually use. You purchase Coordination Credits, and those credits are expended in two ways; context deliveries, and LLM token usage. For example, a check-in delivered to 5 people would cost 5 credits. Here’s the complete breakdown:
| Billable event | Usage amount | Credit amount |
|---|---|---|
| Smart Check-in delivery | 1 | 1 |
| Team Summary delivery | 1 | 1 |
| Goal Story update delivery | 1 | 5 |
| Echo answer delivery | 1 | 5 |
| Basic LLM tokens | 20000 | 1 |
| Advanced LLM tokens (Echoes) | 10000 | 1 |
What counts as a delivery?
A delivery happens each time content reaches one person — not when it’s written. When you post a check-in and 10 teammates receive it, that’s 10 Smart Check-in deliveries, or 10 credits. The same applies to Team Summaries, Goal Story updates, and Echo answers: every recipient counts as one delivery.
This is why credit usage scales with the size of each update’s audience, not just your headcount.
It’s also why we price this way: each delivery is a person who got caught up without a meeting. When your check-in reaches 10 teammates, that’s 10 people who skipped a standup or a status ping — a small fraction of what that meeting would have cost in everyone’s time (or patience!)
How do I forecast credit usage?
The easiest way is the calculator on our pricing page — enter your team size and it estimates monthly credits using typical participation and delivery patterns.
To estimate by hand, start with Smart Check-in deliveries, usually the biggest driver:
people checking in per day × working days per month × average audience size
Average audience size is the number of people who receive each check-in — roughly the team size minus one, counted across every team a person belongs to. For example, 70 people checking in over 22 working days in teams of 10 is 70 × 22 × 9 = 13,860 credits per month.
Then add the smaller drivers:
- Team Summaries: recipients × summaries per month × 1 credit
- Goal Story updates: recipients × updates per month × 5 credits
- Echo answers: recipients × answers per month × 5 credits
- LLM tokens: varies with how much your team uses Quick Fill, Team Highlights, Echoes, and Goal Story templates — typically a small share of total usage
Your account’s Usage details page (Account settings → Usage details) shows actual consumption by category, which you can use to true up any estimate.
Do credits ever expire?
Coordination Credits don’t expire as long as you maintain an active account. We don’t want people to worry that they’re not getting their money’s worth with Steady.
Do you charge for users?
No, there’s zero cost for adding users. In fact, we give you 100 free credits every time you add a new user to Steady. Bring your entire team and loop in stakeholders without worrying if any one person is going to use Steady enough to justify the cost of a seat.
Am I paying for people who don’t use Steady?
No. There are no seat fees — credits are only spent when content is actually delivered to or generated by a person. Someone who isn’t on (or following) any teams doesn’t consume credits, and deactivating a person stops their deliveries entirely. Combined with the 100 free credits each new user brings, there’s no standing cost for occasional contributors or observers.
What’s the most credit-efficient way to keep stakeholders in the loop?
Stakeholders usually don’t need every check-in. Instead of joining or following a team — which delivers every teammate’s check-in, every day — a stakeholder can create an Echo like “give me a high-level weekly progress report for the Platform teams” on a weekly cadence. A single Echo answer distills what would otherwise be dozens of check-in deliveries: less credit usage, and less noise for people who need the shape of things rather than every detail.
Can I add credits without changing my subscription?
Yes, after you subscribe, you have the option of topping off credits on an ad-hoc basis. It’s a good option if you run out of credits due to a usage spike, but expect to fall back to typical usage levels.
Can I upgrade my subscription later?
Yes, you can upgrade at any time, and all credits from the upgraded plan will be instantly available. This means you can start small, and upgrade as need be if you run out of credits.
Will we get billed automatically for overages?
No, you’re in control of how much you spend. When you run out of credits, Steady stops deliveries, but keeps collecting updates and activity for 7 days. If you add more credits, everything resumes without a hitch.
What are basic and advanced tokens used for?
We use a variety of LLMs for features in Steady, with different performance and cost profiles. To keep pricing predictable over time as we change models, we group those models into “basic” and “advanced” buckets. Basic tokens are used for Smart Check-in Quick Fill and Team Highlights, while advanced tokens are used for Echoes and Goal Story templates + Quick Fill.