How AI credits work in Ethnio 📊

Using AI in Ethnio is always optional and governed, so you do not have to use AI in Ethnio at all. There are many ways you can opt-in to using AI to save your team time, like translations or rating a participant’s tech setup. AI credits are how Ethnio measures that AI work.

🎁 Free and unlimited during early access

Every Ethnio plan currently includes unlimited AI credits at no cost. There’s no cap, no overage, and no card required.

We don’t have a date yet, but eventually Ethnio will start charging for AI credit usage. When that happens:

• We’ll let account owners know before anything changes [confirm notice period, e.g. at least 30 days].
• You’ll be able to see your past usage, so you’ll know what to expect before any change.
• Every AI feature can be turned off, so you stay in control of what uses credits.

🧮 What's an AI credit?

Each time Ethnio asks an AI model or translation engine to do something for you, that request is recorded as AI credits. The number of credits depends on how much work the request takes, for example how much text an AI model reads and writes, or how many characters get translated.

Bigger jobs use more credits. Drafting a full study from a long research brief uses more than translating one email subject line.

✨ Features that use AI credits

🎥 Tech checks: Articulation

Tech checks let participants record a short video or audio sample in your screener, and Ethnio scores their setup from 1.0 to 5.0 before the session.

Only one of the five checks uses AI:

• Camera, Lighting, Framing and Microphone run entirely in the participant’s browser. No video or audio leaves their device, and these checks never use credits.
• Articulation uses AI to evaluate how clearly a participant expresses themselves. This is the only tech check that uses AI credits. The recording is deleted after analysis and never used for training.

🌍 AI translations

AI translations localize everything a participant sees, including emails, scheduling, calendar invites, consent forms and incentive redemption pages, in 47+ languages.

Translations run on DeepL, ChatGPT and Amazon Translate. Each translation uses credits based on the amount of text translated. You can review and edit any AI translation in the localization editor, or invite your own translators.

📥 Study intake

Study Intake lets research teams collect study requests from across your organization in one place.  

• AI drafts a study from a requester’s brief or study plan, and makes chat edits to that draft.
• Agent: Ethnio’s built-in AI assistant edits and creates study requests

✅ What features are always free, no AI credits used

There are some features that you might wonder if they use AI credits, and in case it helps, these features never count toward your AI credits:

💬 Ask Ethnio AI: asking how something works in Ethnio, finding a setting, or getting help with a feature. Help questions are always free.

🧑‍💻 Ethnio support: chatting or emailing with our support team, onboarding calls and help articles.

🎥 Most tech checks: Camera, Lighting, Framing and Microphone checks run in the participant’s browser and never use AI. Only Articulation uses credits.

✍️ Default & human translations: anything that's default content, or that you or your invited translators write or edit in the translations editor.

🚫 Study requests with AI disabled: request forms set to Disable AI don’t draft anything, so they never use credits.

🔍 Smart search: this one is probably silly, but obviously this doesn't use AI credits, or even AI. But it does say "smart" so want to avoid confusion.

🤖 MCP: uses your AI credits, but not ours. Tricky, right? Even though you access Ethnio via AI, it connects from the MCP using our API, and only uses your AI credits.

📊 Where to see your usage

For account owners and admins, head to Account › Plan & Usage › AI credits. You’ll see:

• Credits: your current allowance. During early access this shows Unlimited, along with how many credits you’ve used this billing cycle.
• Monthly allowance: the credits included with your plan, which reset every cycle.
• Purchased credits: extra credits you’ve bought. These are used after your monthly allowance and never expire. During early access this stays at 0, since there’s nothing to buy.
• AI requests this cycle: how many times Ethnio called an AI model for your account.
• Daily usage: a chart of credits used each day this cycle. Select Show table to see the exact numbers.
• By feature: which features used your credits, with request counts and percentages.
• By model: which AI providers did the work, with requests, tokens in and out (or characters for translation) and credits for each.

Your current cycle and total credits also appear in the usage summary on Plan & Usage.

🛡️ Your data stays private from AI

AI credits measure how much AI work is done. They don’t change how your data is handled:

• No PII reaches AI. Names, emails, phone numbers, addresses and links are replaced with masked tokens before anything goes to an AI model, then restored afterward inside Ethnio. Learn more in How Ethnio never shares PII or PHI with AI.
• Participant recordings aren’t kept. Articulation videos are deleted after analysis and never used for training.
• Most tech checks never leave the browser. Camera, lighting, framing and microphone checks run on the participant’s own device.

🎛️ Controlling AI use

You can turn AI features on or off at any time:

• Tech checks: in the screener editor, choose which checks to run. Leave Articulation off to skip AI.
• Study requests: in your request form settings, choose a drafting model or select Disable AI.
• Translations: translate manually, or use your own translators in the localization editor instead of AI.

💬 Frequently asked questions

Will I be charged for the credits I’m using now?

No. Credits used during early access are free, and we won’t bill them later.

When will AI credits start costing money?

We don’t have a date yet. We’ll tell account owners before any change.

Is there a limit during early access?

No. AI credits are unlimited on every plan for now.

Why do different models use different amounts of credits?

Each AI provider and model takes a different amount of work to process the same request. The By model table shows exactly how many credits each one used.

Do my study’s participants use credits?

Only when a feature uses AI on their behalf, for example when they record an Articulation check or receive an AI-translated email. Participants are never charged anything.

Who can see AI credit usage?

Account owners & admins

Questions about AI credits? Reach out to help@ethn.io and we’re happy to help. 🙌