Billing & credits
You only pay for the AI that actually reviews your code. Here's exactly how that works, so there are no surprises.
Two ways to pay
Our keys (managed). The simplest option: we run the reviewers on our own AI accounts and bill you for what they cost, plus a small margin. You prepay into a credit balance and each review draws it down. Nothing to set up beyond connecting your repo.
Bring your own keys (BYOK). You paste your own AI provider keys, and each reviewer runs on your account — you pay the provider directly for the AI, and Automation Nation charges only its platform margin. Good if you already have provider accounts or want the usage on your own bill.
You choose per repo, and can switch on the repo's Manage page.
Credits (for "our keys" repos)
Your balance is your personal prepaid wallet. A project's Review billing account identifies whose wallet pays for its managed reviews. Being a co-operator does not mean your wallet funds that project. The Billing page lists your projects' payer assignments; it never shows someone else's balance as yours. Top up your own wallet on the Billing page with a card (secure checkout by Stripe); the credit lands the moment the payment confirms. Prefer hands-off? Start a monthly subscription and a set credit allowance is added automatically each billing period — it stacks on top of whatever you already have, so nothing is ever lost.
To fund a project yourself, open its Manage page, find Review billing account, check the funding confirmation, and select Use my wallet. An admin can also fund a project with their own wallet from the user's setup page. Nobody can select another person's wallet on their behalf: that payer must sign in and authorize it.
The choice applies when a new review job first starts. Already-started jobs and their retries retain the payer they started with. Operators, co-operators, notification settings, existing credits and past charges stay unchanged. An empty wallet never falls back to a different operator's wallet automatically. Existing projects retain their current payer until someone explicitly changes it.
Payer changes wait while a review is running or its outcome is unresolved. If a review times out after it may have spent credits, an operator must reconcile that work before the project can switch wallets. This prevents a later delivery from charging a different person for the same uncertain review. Other work using the existing payer can continue.
A brand-new account gets a small free trial credit on its first review, so you can try the panel with nothing to pay up front.
What a review costs
Each review is metered on the actual AI usage it took — the models' own reported cost — times a small markup. There's no per-seat fee and no monthly minimum: a quiet week costs almost nothing. Your Billing page shows a running statement with the exact cost of each review, and a "Your usage" card summarizing your last 30 days of reviews, your average cost per review, and roughly how many more reviews your current balance covers.
When the balance runs out
If your wallet reaches $0, the platform pauses that account's reviews *before* running (and spending) anything, and leaves a one-time "top up to resume" note on the PR. New jobs do not start against an exhausted wallet. Work already in flight can finish and draw the balance below zero. Fund the selected payer's wallet for subsequent review jobs; topping up a different co-operator's wallet will not resume this project's managed reviews.
BYOK repos are never paused here for balance — they run on your provider keys and you pay the provider directly.
Where to see it all
Everything above lives on your [Billing](/billing) page: balance, top-up, subscription, the per-review statement, and the usage summary. It's all derived from real review activity, so the numbers always reconcile with what actually ran.