Universal Credits give you one centralized quota pool that covers every enrolled Search Atlas product on your account. Instead of tracking separate usage limits for each tool, you monitor a single balance that updates in real time as you work across the platform.

📋 What Are Universal Credits?

A Universal Credit is the standard unit of usage in Search Atlas. Every action that consumes platform resources — running audits, pulling keyword data, checking rankings — draws from a single shared pool rather than from individual per-product counters, provided the resource has been enrolled in the Universal Credits system.

Before Universal Credits, each Search Atlas product (such as the Rank Tracker or Site Auditor) maintained its own independent quota counter. This meant checking multiple surfaces to understand your overall usage, with no clear picture of how consumption across tools related to your total available quota. Universal Credits consolidates quota tracking into one shared pool, progressively replacing per-product counters as each tool is migrated.

Note: Universal Credits is currently available to new sign-ups only. Existing accounts continue on standard per-product quotas for now — see the Troubleshooting section below.

📊 Monthly Universal Credits by Plan

Every account receives a monthly Universal Credit grant based on its base plan. These credits refill on your billing cycle reset date; unused monthly credits do not carry over to the next cycle.

🔄 How Universal Credits Replace the Legacy Quota System

Here's how the two systems compare:

• Legacy system: Each product tracked usage in its own separate counter. Exhausting one tool's quota had no visible relationship to limits in other tools.
• Universal Credits: Enrolled products draw from one shared balance. The same credit count appears consistently wherever quota information is displayed for those tools. Products not yet migrated continue to use their existing per-product quotas as a fallback.

For migrated tools, you no longer need to check multiple indicators in different parts of Search Atlas — one balance shows exactly what you have available across every enrolled tool. Credit accounting improvements are actively rolling out as more services join the unified system.

👁️ How to View Your Universal Credits Balance

Your Universal Credits balance is accessible from your account settings and updates automatically after each action.

1. Log in to your Search Atlas account.
2. Click your Avatar and go to Billing → Plans & Top-ups.
3. Locate the Your Plan and Credits section (on the Plans & Top-ups page) to see your remaining balance and usage for the current billing period.

Your remaining credits and period usage are visible from this view at any time. A quota overview is also being added to the OTTO All Sites dashboard, which will surface your balance directly alongside your sites once that release ships.

⚡ How Credits Are Consumed Across Search Atlas Products

Credits are deducted at the moment an action is triggered — not when results are delivered. Any feature that uses platform resources (crawling pages, generating reports, requesting keyword metrics) draws from your Universal Credits balance, as long as that feature has been enrolled in the unified system.

Key things to understand about consumption:

• Shared pool, shared team: All users on your account draw from the same balance. Team activity collectively counts toward your quota.
• Action scope matters: Larger or more resource-intensive requests consume more credits than smaller ones. A broad site crawl, for example, uses more credits than a single-URL check.
• Exchange rates vary by feature: Different actions consume different amounts of credits. See the full rate table below for the current cost of each feature.
• Balance renews on your billing cycle: Your credits reset according to your plan's renewal date, not on a per-product schedule.

Review period usage in your account settings to identify which activities consume the most credits.

💱 Universal Credit Exchange Rates by Feature

Each action has a published exchange rate — the number of credits it costs. The rates below are the active production rates as of July 21, 2026:

You can also view the full, always-current rate list for your account any time on the Billing page, under Universal Credit Usage.

⚠️ What to Do When Your Credits Are Exhausted

When your Universal Credits balance reaches zero, any action that requires credits will not be processed until your balance is replenished. Requests are never partially completed — if an action cannot run within your available balance, it will not start.

To keep work running without interruption:

• Monitor your balance regularly, especially during high-activity periods or before large batch operations.
• Coordinate team usage if your account is shared, to avoid unexpected depletion mid-cycle.
• Review your plan options if you consistently exhaust credits before your renewal date — upgrading your plan increases the total credits available each cycle.
• Purchase a top-up if you need additional credits before your normal renewal date. Top-ups are typically reflected in your balance within a few minutes of purchase.

Contact Search Atlas support if you need to discuss adding credits outside your normal renewal schedule.

🛠️ Why Am I Still Seeing Per-Product Quota Indicators?

If your account was created before Universal Credits launched, this is expected — Universal Credits is currently only available to new sign-ups. Existing accounts are not being migrated automatically right now, and there is no self-serve switch available at this time.

There is no ETA yet for when existing accounts will be eligible. If you have questions about your specific account, reach out via the live chat widget inside the platform.

If your balance does not update after a credit purchase: try refreshing the page first. If the new balance still does not appear within a few minutes, contact support with your order confirmation so the team can verify the credit was applied correctly to your account.

🎯 You now know what Universal Credits are, how the unified balance progressively replaces legacy per-product quotas as tools are migrated, and what to do if your credits run low, a top-up doesn't appear, or the new interface hasn't reached your account yet. To understand what's included in your specific plan, see the Search Atlas Plans and Limits article next.