What Credits Are, How They're Calculated, and Where to Buy Them

In One Sentence

Soniva uses a single billing unit: credits. Whether you're using voices from Alibaba Cloud, Volcano Engine, MiniMax, or ElevenLabs, every deduction pulls from the same credit balance. You decide where to spend your budget instead of juggling "this brand's quota ran out while that brand's is nearly unused."

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Why Not Grant Separate Quotas Per Brand

The old approach gave each brand its own monthly character quota. If you heavily used just one brand (say, frequently listening with ElevenLabs), that brand's quota drained first while the barely-touched quotas for Alibaba Cloud or Volcano Engine sat idle — you paid but felt you didn't get value. With one unified credit pool, every brand shares a single budget: expensive brands drain it faster, cheap ones slower, entirely at your discretion.

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How Credits Are Calculated

Different brands and model tiers consume different credits per 1,000 characters, because each vendor Soniva integrates charges differently — expensive models (e.g. ElevenLabs' premium voices) consume more credits, while cheap ones (e.g. Alibaba Cloud's basic tier) consume less.

A simple conversion to keep in mind:

When topping up, $1 = 760 credits (every $5 yields 3,800 credits)

It isn't a neat 1,000 because roughly 24% of what you pay is payment-provider fees and your region's taxes; credits are issued on the net amount Soniva actually receives. See Top-Up Rules.

For a specific brand and model, the exact credits per 1,000 characters appears right below the dropdown once you pick the brand and model in "TTS Settings" (e.g. "~15 credits / 1,000 chars") — no mental math or price-table lookup required. Switching models within a brand (e.g. basic vs. premium) can change consumption, so watch that hint before choosing and you'll know the cost.

Tip: how Chinese vs. English is billed can differ slightly on certain brands (e.g. some count a CJK character as 2 billable characters). These subtleties are already factored into the estimated consumption rate shown, so you don't need to convert anything yourself.

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Where Credits Come From

There are two sources, and you can use both:

1. Monthly Auto-Grant From Your Subscription

Subscribe to any of Plus / Pro / Max and a batch of credits lands automatically at the start of each billing cycle — no extra steps:

Upgrading mid-cycle (e.g. Plus → Pro) immediately grants the difference — no waiting for the next billing cycle.

2. Top-Up Purchases

On the "Usage" page, click "Top Up" on the credit card to choose an amount in multiples of $5 (presets of $10 / $25 / $50 / $100 are offered, plus a precise stepper). Every $5 yields 3,800 credits, with no tiered discount — $10 and $100 convert to the same per-credit price, so there's no agonizing over "should I buy more to get a better deal."

The top-up window shows the exact credits this purchase yields in real time — that figure reads the backend's real configuration, so trust it.

Top-ups require an active subscription (any of Plus/Pro/Max). This keeps the credit pool bound to a real account and prevents abuse.

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Do Credits Expire

Yes — and the two sources expire differently, which is worth noting:

• Subscription-granted credits: clear at the end of the current billing cycle and don't carry over to next month. If you subscribed but barely used it this month, the unused grant won't roll over and is simply wasted. So pick a tier by your actual usage rather than "hoarding."
• Purchased credits: usable for 1 year from purchase, and they don't lapse just because your subscription ends or you cancel.

The system deducts subscription-granted credits first and spends purchased credits last — so even if you cancel, credits you bought earlier remain usable.

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FAQ

Q: Which tier should I subscribe to? First estimate roughly how many characters you read per month and which brand you tend to use. If you habitually use high-consumption brands (like ElevenLabs), the same budget reads far fewer characters than with Alibaba Cloud's basic tier — the exact consumption rate is visible when you pick the brand/model, so do a rough mental tally from there.

Q: What if I run out of credits? Two options: upgrade to a higher subscription tier (grants more from the next cycle), or top up directly — top-ups aren't restricted by billing cycles, so buy anytime and it lands instantly.

Q: Can I still use purchased credits after cancelling? Yes. Purchased credits are independent and usable any time within a year, regardless of subscription status. You just won't have the monthly grants anymore after cancelling.

Q: Why does the same brand consume differently across models? Because the upstream vendor itself charges different amounts for different model tiers (e.g. more natural, better-sounding models have higher upstream costs). Soniva converts credits at the true cost, rather than charging one flat rate for every model.

Q: Where do I see my credit balance? The top of the "Usage" page shows current total credits, plus what's left separately from subscription grants and top-up purchases; the billing detail shows how many credits each reading consumed too.

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Want the Concrete Numbers

• Full Credit Rate Table — what each brand and tier costs, with official upstream price sources
• What a Given Credit Budget Buys — what an article / a report / a month roughly costs
• How to Choose a Subscription Tier — the boundaries of Free / Plus / Pro / Max
• Top-Up Rules and Credit Validity — steps, discounts, validity, deduction order