Why We Don't Sell Credits (A Pricing Manifesto)

Almost every AI video tool sells you credits. You buy a bucket, each video drains it, and somewhere around the 20th of the month the bucket runs dry — right when you've built the posting habit that was supposed to grow your channel. We think that model is backwards, so we don't use it. MASKED//ENGINE is flat $19/month for 30 finished videos. No credits. No tokens. No "you've run out." Here's the reasoning.

Credits punish the exact behaviour that works

Faceless channels grow through consistency — daily posting for weeks while the algorithm learns your audience. A credit system taxes every single video, so the tool is quietly pulling against your strategy. The more disciplined you are, the faster you hit the wall and the more you pay. A pricing model should reward volume, not fine you for it.

Credits exist for the seller, not the buyer

Metered pricing is popular with tool-makers for two reasons: it maximizes revenue from power users, and it hides the true cost per video behind a currency you have to mentally convert. "200 credits" doesn't mean anything until you learn, mid-project, that it's six videos. Flat pricing is simply more honest — you know exactly what a month costs and exactly what you get.

What flat pricing forces us to do

Flat pricing keeps us honest too. If we bill the same whether you make 3 videos or 30, we only win when the engine is fast, reliable and cheap to run — so our incentives point at efficiency, not at squeezing your usage. If a video costs us more to make, that's our problem to solve, not a surcharge to pass on.

The one fair limit

Thirty videos a month isn't a credit balance — it's a fair-use ceiling that covers daily posting with room to spare. It exists to stop abuse, not to meter your creativity. Post every day and you'll still have videos left over.

The principle

Pricing is a promise about whose side you're on. Credits say "we profit when you strain." Flat says "we profit when you succeed and stick around." We'd rather you post daily for a year than burn a credit bucket and quit in week three. That's the whole manifesto.

See how it works in practice on the faceless video generator, or compare us honestly against the credit-based tools in the full comparison.