Required AI credits should be priced in the headline, not netted off

Our position is simple: when a software vendor makes an AI credit bundle a required part of the plan, the price of that bundle belongs in the headline price. If it is discounted, the page should say what the full price is and when the discount stops. Netting the bundle off so the bill looks like the old per-seat bill is not good enough.

The clearest current example in project management is monday.com. We are criticising a pricing practice that its own pages document, not its staff or its product.

What the pages say

monday.com's help centre says that for customers who sign up from 6 May 2026, AI credits must be purchased alongside seats on its AI work platform plans, and that they are not included for free. The same article sets the minimum at 1,000 credits a month on Basic, 2,000 on Standard and 3,000 on Pro. A separate catalog page notes that this section applies to the monday AI work platform only, and does not affect monday CRM, monday dev, or monday service.

The pricing page, which we retrieved this week, shows how that looks to a buyer. In its ten-seat, annual-billing example, Basic is $9 a seat, ten seats cost $90, 1,000 credits are listed at $10, and a special monthly discount of $10 brings the total back to $90. Standard works the same way: $120 total, with 2,000 credits listed at $20 and a $20 discount. On Pro the page shows $190, with 3,000 credits listed at $30 and a $30 discount. The page also shows $140 beside the Standard total and $220 beside Pro, which match the undiscounted sums.

By our arithmetic on those figures, the undiscounted totals would be about 11% higher on Basic, 17% on Standard and 16% on Pro. The help article only says that some customers may receive discounted introductory pricing tied to the minimum credit quantity. In the page text we retrieved, we did not find an end date for the discount. That is the gap we are writing about.

Why it matters to a small team

A buyer comparing project management tools reads the seat price first, multiplies by headcount and moves on. One pricing analysis of the launch noted that the special discount offsets the dollar value of the credits, so the invoice looks like a classic per-seat bill and the credits look free during adoption. That is a fair description of what a quick reader sees. It is also the moment when budgets get set.

The credits are not decorative. monday.com's catalog lists 120 credits per meeting hour for the AI Notetaker and 8 credits per AI block action. Using only those two figures, a 1,000-credit Basic bundle would stretch to roughly eight hours of meeting notes or 125 block actions, and not both. The vendor's own figures also show that heavier features cost more: agent tasks range from about 10 to 50 credits for simple work to 250 or more for extra complex work. A team that adopts agents will meet the bundle's ceiling faster than one that only summarises a few meetings.

When that happens, the help centre says notifications are triggered at 80% and 100% of usage and that admins can upgrade to a bigger bucket. The same page adds that credits are bought under the pricing plans in effect at the time of purchase. In plain terms, the price a team compares today is not guaranteed to be the price it pays at the next purchase.

The strongest counter-argument

The best defence of this model is a good one. AI features cost the vendor money every time they run, so loading that cost into every seat would make light users subsidise heavy ones. Separating access to the workplace, which is seats, from access to work done by AI, which is credits, is arguably the more honest structure. Another pricing analysis notes that, in monday.com's case, seat prices were left untouched and credits were added as a separate metered layer. A team that wants no AI still pays the same seat price as before, and the credit bundle is small next to the seat bill.

We accept most of that. Metering is not the problem. Nor is an introductory discount, which is a normal way to ease customers into a new charge. Our objection is narrower: a required charge is part of the price, and a temporary discount on it is a promotion, not the price. If the full price is the one that will apply later, the headline should lead with it, or at least carry it at equal weight.

The defence also works less well for small teams. A three-seat team that never uses an agent still has to take the minimum bundle. Required credits are a price increase for anyone who does not want the feature, however well the metering logic is designed.

What we would like to see

• The total at list price, including required credits, shown next to any discounted total.
• An end date or renewal rule for introductory credit discounts, stated on the pricing page itself.
• A plain statement of whether a plan without AI is available, and what changes if a team declines.
• Credit costs shown in real tasks, such as hours of meeting notes, using one consistent set of figures.

What buyers can do now

Whichever vendor you are weighing, write down the seat price, the required add-ons and the renewal price as three separate lines. Ask the sales team in writing what the credit bundle costs after any introductory discount ends, and whether the answer applies at renewal. Check whether a free or cheaper tier covers your needs: monday.com's pricing page lists a free plan for up to two seats, and a team that does not need AI automation may be fine without the paid bundle. None of this is advice to choose or avoid any product. It is a plea for pricing pages that let buyers do the arithmetic themselves.