Most AI video tools quietly hide their unit economics behind a flat monthly fee. That works until your usage grows or shrinks — then you're either overpaying or rate-limited.
Why credits
A credit-based model maps cleanly to real production cost: 1 credit = 1 generated video including script, voice, edit and captions. You scale exactly with your publishing cadence — no commitment, no over-allocation.
How to budget
Estimate daily output × 30 to get monthly credits. Multi-language fan-outs count once per output language. Add a 10–20% buffer for reruns and approvals that bounce back.
Cost transparency
FeedReels exposes per-video cost in the workspace. For agencies, this lets you set retainers grounded in real numbers; for in-house teams, it lets you justify spend to finance without opening a black box.
When a flat fee makes sense
If you publish at a perfectly predictable volume year-round, a flat plan can be cheaper. For anyone scaling or running multiple seasonal campaigns, credits stay more honest.