🖥️ What Is Website Studio and How Do Credits Work?
Website Studio is the AI-powered site-building tool inside Search Atlas. To generate pages, sections, and design elements, the tool consumes Universal Credits — a shared credit pool used across several features in the platform.
Understanding how your monthly credit quota works helps you plan your projects and avoid unexpected pauses mid-build.
📊 How Many Credits Does the Starter Plan Include?
On the Starter plan, your account receives a set number of Universal Credits each billing cycle that can be used across all supported features, including Website Studio. Your exact quota is visible directly inside the platform:
- Log in to your Search Atlas account.
- Click your avatar in the top-right corner.
- Select Billing to see your current balance, monthly allowance, and reset date.
If the number displayed does not match what you expected based on your plan, this may be related to a known display issue that has since been resolved — see the section below for more detail.
🔄 When Do Credits Refresh?
Your Universal Credits refresh automatically at the start of each billing cycle — either monthly or annually depending on how your subscription is set up.
- Monthly plans: Credits reset on the same date each month.
- Annual plans: Credits still refresh on a monthly basis throughout the year. Your quota does not accumulate over 12 months — unused credits from one month do not roll over to the next.
If you are on an annual plan and your quota display appeared frozen or never seemed to refresh, this was caused by a known issue in which the interface merged recurring and one-time purchased credits into a single number. This has been fixed, and your dashboard should now correctly show your recurring monthly quota separately.
⚠️ Known Display Issues Now Resolved
Our engineering team has addressed several credit-display bugs that may have caused confusion for Starter plan customers:
- Incorrect quota totals: Some accounts saw a credit allowance that did not match their actual plan allocation. This has been corrected so that your displayed quota now reflects the accurate per-plan amount.
- Legacy credit values shown: Website Studio was briefly showing an outdated credit quota instead of the current Universal Credits balance. This has been updated.
- Annual plan refresh confusion: The quota counter appeared static for annual subscribers because purchased and recurring credits were displayed as one combined figure. These are now shown separately so you can clearly see when your monthly credits have refreshed.
If you noticed any of these issues before, no credits were lost — only the display was affected. Your actual available balance should now be accurate.
💡 Tips for Managing Your Website Studio Credits
- Check your credit balance before starting a large Website Studio project so you know how much you have available.
- Prioritise your most important pages or sections first in case you run low toward the end of your billing cycle.
- If you need more credits before your quota refreshes, additional Universal Credits can be purchased from the Billing section (via your avatar in the top-right) of your account.
- Purchased credits are separate from your recurring monthly allowance and do not expire at the end of a billing cycle.
🛠️ Troubleshooting: My Quota Still Looks Wrong
If your credit balance or monthly quota still does not look correct after the fixes described above, try the following steps:
- Hard-refresh your browser (Ctrl + Shift + R on Windows or Cmd + Shift + R on Mac) to clear any cached data.
- Log out of Search Atlas and log back in.
- Navigate to your avatar (top-right) > Billing and confirm your plan type and billing cycle dates.
- Compare the displayed quota against the plan details listed on the Search Atlas pricing page.
If the issue persists after these steps, our support team can review your account directly. If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type human teammate to be connected with a member of our team.