AI and Voice
How AI generation and text-to-speech allowances work, when limits reset, and what to do when you hit one.
Berdee uses AI for two things: drafting lessons and generating spoken audio (TTS) for student-facing widgets. Both are metered and your plan determines your monthly allowance.
Monthly allowances
Your AI and TTS allowances refresh on the first of each calendar month (UTC):
| Plan | AI actions / month | TTS characters / month |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 20 AI images | Not included |
| Plus | 500 | 5,000 |
| Studio Pro | 2,000 | 10,000 |
On Free, your AI allowance is 20 AI images a month from the media picker's Generate tab (Generate images with AI). Lesson building, Ask Berdee, sound effects and text-to-speech aren't included on Free: trying one shows the upgrade prompt. Upgrade to Plus or Studio Pro for a monthly allowance that covers all of them.
You can see your current usage at any time on Settings → Usage. The same screen shows when each allowance resets.
Extra allowance from support
If you run out partway through something that matters (a unit you're building for next week, say), contact Berdee support. Support can add extra AI actions or text-to-speech characters to your allowance for the current month. When they do, Settings → Usage shows it under the meter, for example "Includes 200 extra actions this month from Berdee support," and the total already counts it.
Extra allowance lasts until your allowance resets on the 1st (UTC) and doesn't carry over. It tops up a Plus or Studio Pro allowance; it can't turn on AI or text-to-speech on the Free plan.
How the Assistant and Ask Berdee are counted
Berdee's chat surfaces are metered by the message: each message you send counts as one AI action, whatever it asks for and however much work it sets off.
- The Assistant — a how-to question, a description of the lesson you want, an answer to one of its questions, approving the plan, asking for a change afterward: one AI action each. The build itself — every scene, every picture, every retry — costs nothing extra. See The Assistant and Have Berdee Build a Lesson.
- Ask Berdee in the studio — one AI action per message you send, whether it's a question, an edit, new scenes, or an image search; the behind-the-scenes steps Berdee takes to finish a request are not counted. See Ask Berdee in the Studio.
- Narration in scenes Ask Berdee builds is recorded right after the scenes are added and uses text-to-speech characters, the same as pressing Generate Audio on a text to speech widget. (Narration in a lesson the Assistant builds is included in the build.)
- Image generation from the studio's Generate tab is one AI action per image (Generate Images with AI).
- Sound effects are one AI action per request: describing a sound and pressing generate gives you three takes to choose from for one action. A sound effect your connected assistant makes is one AI action too. Like other AI features, sound effects need Plus or Studio Pro (Choose and source media).
A lesson Berdee builds counts toward your plan's lesson limit like any lesson you create by hand. If you're at the limit, the Assistant says so as soon as it would start planning one, before anything is planned or spent — delete a draft you no longer need or see Plans. Asking the Assistant how-to questions still works at the limit; only starting a new lesson stops.
Occasionally, Berdee may pause starting new lessons for the rest of the day. If the Assistant tells you so, it isn't about your plan or your usage, and nothing is charged. Try again after midnight UTC. Lessons already being built finish as normal, and questions, Ask Berdee in the studio, and generating audio and images keep working.
Hourly rate limit
Independent of monthly caps, AI calls are rate-limited per hour so a single account can't burn the whole allowance in a few seconds. On Free, that's 5 images an hour. If you're working on a multi-scene unit and trigger many AI drafts back to back, you may briefly hit the rate limit. Wait a minute and try again.
What happens when you hit a limit
When you try a paid action that would exceed an allowance, you'll see the paywall modal with one of three messages:
- "You've used this month's free AI images" — on Free, your 20 images for the month are used up. The message tells you when you get more and links to the plans.
- "You've hit this month's allowance" — your monthly cap is reached. The message tells you when it resets and links to /pricing if you'd rather upgrade than wait.
- "Too many requests" — you tripped the hourly rate limit. Try again in a minute.
- "Upgrade to Plus / Studio Pro" — your current plan doesn't include the capability. Click See plans to compare and upgrade.
Marketplace credits don't top up your AI allowance
Marketplace credits are a separate currency for buying lessons in the marketplace — they don't add AI drafts or TTS characters, and using AI or TTS doesn't spend them. If you're doing one-off heavy AI use (like rebuilding an entire unit), you can wait for your monthly reset, upgrade to a plan with a larger allowance, or ask support for extra allowance this month.