Allowances and limits

Everything the agents do that costs money — writing, illustrating, scanning, crawling — is metered against a monthly allowance. Allowances reset every 30 days from the date your subscription started, not on a calendar month or your billing period — so on an annual plan your card is charged once a year, but usage counters still reset every 30 days.

What each allowance covers

• Articles — full articles the SEO Agent generates, one credit each regardless of length.
• Images — AI illustrations added to articles, up to a per-plan ceiling per article (below); 0 images spends nothing.
• AI citation scans — checks of whether AI engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini) cite your site.
• Site audits — full technical crawls of your site.
• Keyword researches — keyword and competitor lookups.
• GEO audits — the GEO Agent's citability analysis (AI calls plus up to 8 page crawls).
• Schema validations — structured-data validate/revalidate/suggest-fields runs.
• AI optimizations — content-gap analysis, page-optimizer runs, link refreshes.
• AI operations — smaller AI actions with no bucket of their own, like analyze-SEO and content chat.
• Websites — sites you can connect at once, not a monthly counter.
• Tracked keywords — keywords the Rank Tracker can watch at once.

What an AI operation is

"AI operations" is the catch-all bucket for the smaller AI actions that have no allowance of their own — analyze-SEO runs, content chat, and the alt-text writing pass over images already on your site. It is not the same bucket as AI optimizations, which covers the bigger named actions: content-gap analysis, page-optimizer runs and link refreshes. An article, an image, an audit, a keyword research, a GEO audit and a schema validation each spend their own allowance, never this one.

Trial vs Starter vs Pro

The two caps that are not monthly counters

Websites. A subscription connects 1 website on the trial and on Starter, and 5 on Pro. Connecting one more than your plan allows is refused outright; Pro is the plan to move to for more sites. Tracked keywords: 500 on Starter, 2,500 on Pro (100 on the trial). That is how many keywords the Rank Tracker can watch at once, not how many you can research per month; to track a new one past the cap, stop tracking another.

What happens when you hit a cap

• Articles: a scheduled article at the cap is marked "Paused - Limit Reached" with a notification. It resumes automatically once your allowance resets — nothing is lost.
• Images: an article keeps generating without illustrations once images run out and publishes text-only. You get one notification per 30-day period, not one per article.
• Everything else metered: the request is refused with an HTTP 429 and the code USAGE_LIMIT_REACHED, showing how many you've used against your limit.
• Websites: connecting one more site than your plan allows is refused outright.

What the upgrade prompt tells you

When you hit a cap, a modal explains which allowance you hit and how much you've used. On the trial, it tells you the full monthly allowance unlocks once the trial converts (500 articles, 150 images on Starter). On a paid plan it shows your reset date and points you to hello@climbai.io if you need more sooner. Starter can move to Pro for higher allowances.

Where to check your usage

Go to Settings → Billing for "Usage this month": a meter bar per field showing used/limit and your reset date. Bars turn red at 90% or more of a limit.