Why credits and ownership are separate

The credit ledger records financial outcomes, while entitlements record access. A content purchase does not imply that every optional inference request is free, and disabled checkout does not erase an existing balance.

Retries, cancellation and service failures should have understandable outcomes. Ownership must survive a failed attempt, while a completed operation must not be charged again just because its response was retried.

Conversation admission reserves the applicable cost before inference and uses durable settlement to complete or refund it. Cognition and Core coordinate private replies without holding a database transaction during model generation. Financial retention remains distinct from account conversation erasure.

Generating a complete owned reply's speech costs one credit under the existing paid-speech contract, even when the provider internally renders several passages. Ready paid audio replays without another debit. Prerecorded room media has its own controls.

Arcade Campaigns 1–2 are free; Campaigns 3–4 use a one-time 50-credit ownership purchase. Visibility and predecessor completion remain independent gates. PayPal checkout requires its own enabled configuration and real callback acceptance.

Further reading: Engineering handbook.