How Mediafy Credits Work: Costs, Packs and Refunds

Here's a prompt that wastes credits:

a nice photo of a coffee cup

And here's the version that doesn't:

Ceramic coffee cup on a oak table by a window, soft morning light, steam rising, shallow depth of field, warm tones

The second one isn't just better looking. It's cheaper in practice, because you're more likely to get something usable on the first or second try instead of the sixth. That's the real idea behind managing mediafy credits: the price of a generation is fixed and visible, so the way you save is by running fewer wasted ones.

This post covers how credits are priced, what the packs are, how to read the cost before you click, what happens when a generation fails, and a few habits that stretch a balance.

What a credit is

Mediafy Studio runs on credits, and there are no free credits. You can buy a pack when you need one and spend it down at your own pace, or take a monthly plan that refills your credits automatically.

The base rate is simple: 1 credit = CA$0.10.

Nothing renews on a schedule and nothing bills you in the background. If you don't generate anything for a month, nothing happens.

The three packs

Packs are paid by card through Square. You sign in with a Google account first.

| Pack | Price | Credits |

|---|---|---|

| Small | CA$5 | 50 |

| Medium | CA$10 | 110 |

| Large | CA$25 | 300 |

Do the division and the larger packs come out cheaper per credit. The CA$10 pack works out to about CA$0.091 a credit, and the CA$25 pack to about CA$0.083, against CA$0.10 for the CA$5 pack.

Which one to buy comes down to how you work:

• Trying it out: the CA$5 pack is enough to get a feel for the Studio without committing much.
• Regular but light use: the CA$10 pack gives you a bit of extra room.
• Batches, campaigns or video work: the CA$25 pack has the lowest cost per credit, which matters if you iterate a lot.

Monthly plans

If you create every week, a monthly plan gives you more credits per dollar. Plans are optional; packs work without one.

• Starter: CA$19 a month for 275 credits, 6 generations at once.
• Plus: CA$39 a month for 800 credits, 8 at once.
• Pro: CA$79 a month for 1,800 credits, 10 at once.
• Max: CA$149 a month for 3,800 credits, 12 at once.

Paying yearly takes 20% off. Plan credits refill each month, and any you don't use expire at the refill, while credits from packs never expire. Plan credits are spent first. You can cancel any time from your account; the plan stops at the end of the period you paid for.

Every model has its own cost

Credits aren't a flat fee per generation. Each model has its own price, and Image, Video and Audio generations are each priced by the model you pick.

Two examples to anchor it:

• A Nano Banana image costs 3 credits (CA$0.30).
• A Seedream 5 Pro image costs 2 credits (CA$0.20).

The model lineup changes over time. Image models such as Nano Banana 2, Seedream 5 Pro and GPT Image 2 each have their own price. Video models such as Kling v3 Standard and Pro, Veo 3.1 (and Veo 3.1 Fast), and MiniMax H3 Max (and H3 Max Turbo) each have their own price too. I'm not going to list numbers for those here, because they can change. Instead, do this.

Read the Generate button

The credit cost shows on the Generate button before you run anything. Switch models and watch the number change. That's your price check, and it's always current.

A habit worth forming: before you click, look at the number and ask whether this is the right model for this step. A final hero image and a rough idea test don't need the same spend.

What happens when a generation fails

Failed generations are refunded automatically. You don't need to file anything or ask.

Be clear on what that covers. A failed generation is one that didn't complete. A generation that ran fine but gave you a result you didn't love is a different thing: it ran, so plan for that by testing cheaply first (more on that below).

A cheap-to-expensive workflow

Here's the workflow that makes the weak-versus-strong prompt from the top pay off.

1. Write the short idea. Start with something rough like coffee cup on a table, morning.
2. Press Enhance. The Enhance button rewrites a short prompt into a fuller one. Read what it produced and edit anything that's wrong. Don't accept it blind.
3. Draft with a cheap model. Run it on Seedream 5 Pro for 2 credits. You're checking composition and subject, not final polish.
4. Fix the prompt, not the model. If the cup is wrong, the table is wrong or the light is flat, change the words and draft again. Another 1 credit.
5. Run the final on a stronger model. Once the draft looks right, switch to something like Nano Banana (3 credits) and generate the version you'll actually use.

Four drafts and one final comes to 7 credits, or CA$0.70. Going straight to five expensive runs would be 15 credits. The gap grows fast with video.

Habits that stretch your credits

Draft images before you make video

If your plan is image first, then video, get the image right while it's cheap. A video built from a good still has a better start than one built from a vague prompt. Check the cost on the Generate button for each video model before you commit.

Change one thing at a time

If you rewrite the subject, the lighting and the model all at once, you can't tell what helped. Change one element, run, compare.

Save what works

Use My Prompts to save prompts that gave you good results, and Discover to start from ready-made examples with the "Try this" button. Everything you generate lands in Assets, so you don't have to rerun something you already made.

Use Chat for the thinking

Mediafy Chat helps you brainstorm ideas, write prompts and plan shoots. Working out what you want before you generate is the cheapest step in the whole process.

Chain steps with care

Flows let you chain steps, such as image, then video, then voice-over, and run the whole chain. UGC Factory does something similar: it writes a script, makes a selfie-style image, lip-syncs it into a talking video and adds subtitles. Both save time. Each step still has its own cost, so check what a chain will spend before you run it, and test your first step on its own.

Reuse your characters

If you make AI influencers or characters, design the face once and reuse it. Type @ in the Studio to bring in a saved character or Seed. Seeds are saved sets of reference images for a consistent look. That cuts down on the retries you'd burn trying to match a face by description alone.

Common credit mistakes

• Going straight to the priciest model. Draft cheap first.
• Ignoring the Generate button. The number is right there.
• Vague prompts. "A nice photo" gives the model nothing to aim at.
• Changing everything between runs. You learn nothing from it.
• Expecting a refund for a result you just didn't like. Refunds cover failed generations.
• Buying the big pack before you know your usage. Start small if you're unsure, then step up.

A quick budget example

Say you're a small business making a week of product visuals. You plan 10 final images on Nano Banana (30 credits) and about 10 Seedream 5 Pro drafts (20 credits). That's 50 credits, or CA$5.00 at the base rate. The CA$10 pack of 110 covers it with room to spare. Your numbers will differ, since video costs vary by model, but the same arithmetic works for any plan: count drafts, count finals, multiply by the price on the button.

If you're new to the Studio and want a walkthrough of the basics first, start with Your First Image in 5 Minutes. And if you want to go deeper on making AI content for work, the AI Creator Lab course is the next step.

Ready to try it? Sign in with Google and check the price on the Generate button for yourself.