Quotas and add-ons
LingoVae meters AI usage in transformations. One transformation is one call to the AI to generate or rewrite one product description.
This page covers how transformations are counted, your monthly limit per plan, and how to top up if you need more.
What counts as a transformation
A transformation is consumed every time LingoVae sends a generation request to the AI. This includes:
- Generating a new description for a product, single or bulk
- Tweaking an existing description — shortening, lengthening, retoning, polishing grammar
- Translating an existing description into another language
- Summarizing a long description into a short form
- Auto-styling on create — same cost as a manual generate
If you generate four drafts at once with the multi-style picker, that’s four transformations.
If you generate one draft, edit it heavily in the rich-text editor, and publish, that’s one transformation — your edits don’t go through the AI.
If a generation fails (provider timeout, rate limit, etc.), it does not count. You won’t be charged for failed attempts.
What doesn’t count
A few AI calls are free — they don’t count toward your monthly quota:
- Custom style synthesis. When you create a custom style via the wizard, the synthesis pass is on us.
- Confidence scoring. Every draft gets a quality score after generation; that scoring call is free.
- Schedule and campaign rule evaluation. No AI is involved — these are deterministic rule checks.
- Previews on the catalog page. Browsing the catalog and previewing styles uses cached samples, not live generation.
The Compare tool does count, because it generates fresh drafts from two styles on a product of your choosing.
Monthly limits
Each plan ships with a monthly transformation budget:
| Plan | Monthly transformations |
|---|---|
| Free | 1,000 |
| Starter | 3,000 |
| Grow | 8,000 |
| Pro | 25,000 |
The counter resets at the start of each billing cycle, not on the 1st of the calendar month. If your renewal date is the 17th, your quota resets on the 17th.
Unused quota does not roll over.
The usage dashboard
Open Settings → Usage to see:
- Used this cycle — running count, updated in real time.
- Remaining — quota minus used.
- Days left in cycle — when the counter resets.
- A burndown chart — daily usage for the current cycle, with a dotted line showing your “burn rate” projection.
- Add-on balance — any top-up packs you’ve purchased (see below).
The Usage page also has a button to Buy add-on pack if you’re running low.
Quota warnings
LingoVae sends you proactive warnings as you approach your limit:
- 80% used — soft warning. A yellow banner appears on the home page. Auto-styling on new products stops (see below).
- 100% used — hard cap. New manual generations show a “Quota reached” error with a buy-add-on CTA. Existing in-flight jobs continue to completion (we don’t cancel a job mid-flight when you hit zero), but the next bulk job won’t start.
You’ll also receive email warnings if you have notifications enabled at Settings → Notifications.
The 80% soft cap on auto-styling
This is important: auto-styling on create stops at 80% of your monthly quota, even if you have transformations remaining.
Why: a runaway product import (you bulk-import 5,000 SKUs from a PIM, say) could burn your entire month’s quota in an hour, leaving you with no headroom for the manual work that needs more attention. The 80% soft cap reserves the last 20% for human-initiated work.
When the soft cap trips:
- New products created in Shopify don’t get auto-styled.
- The auto-style queue rows are marked skipped_quota and shown in the activity feed.
- Manual generations still work, up to 100% of quota.
- The next cycle, auto-styling resumes automatically.
You can change the threshold or disable auto-styling entirely in Settings → Auto-style.
Add-on packs
If you run out of transformations, you can buy add-on packs: one-time purchases that top up your balance.
| Pack | Transformations | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Small | 1,000 | $5 |
| Medium | 5,000 | $20 |
| Large | 25,000 | $80 |
(Prices are illustrative; check the in-app Usage page for current pricing in your store’s currency.)
Add-on packs:
- Are billed via Shopify as one-time charges, separate from your subscription.
- Survive plan changes. If you buy a pack on Pro and downgrade to Starter, the pack balance stays.
- Survive cancellation and re-install. Your pack balance persists until used.
- Don’t expire. They sit in your balance until consumed.
- Are consumed after your monthly quota. LingoVae uses your monthly first, then dips into add-ons.
To buy a pack, go to Settings → Usage → Buy add-on pack. Pick a size, approve the Shopify charge, and the balance is added within seconds.
Bulk jobs and quota
When you start a bulk job, LingoVae prechecks that you have enough quota to finish it.
If you don’t, the job won’t start — you’ll see an error: “This job needs 247 transformations. You have 80 remaining this cycle plus 0 in add-ons.” You can:
- Reduce the scope of the job (pick fewer products).
- Wait until next cycle.
- Buy an add-on pack right then and there.
The precheck looks at monthly remaining + add-on balance. It does not assume failed transformations won’t count — it’s conservative.
Custom limits and overrides
If you need a custom limit (e.g., a higher cap without upgrading to the next tier), contact support — we can apply a per-store override.
The override is stored as a setting on your account; it survives plan changes until removed.
Where the AI work actually runs
LingoVae uses several AI providers behind the scenes — OpenAI, Anthropic, others — and routes each transformation to the best provider/model for the job. You don’t pick the provider; we do, and we may shift the routing over time as new models become available.
If you have specific compliance requirements (HIPAA, data residency, on-prem) that constrain which providers can be used, contact us — we can discuss provider routing options for your store.
The AI sometimes says no
Occasionally, the AI will refuse to generate a description — usually because something in the original triggered a safety filter (controlled substances, weapons, certain medical claims). When that happens:
- The draft is marked as failed with a reason (“AI declined — content flagged”).
- The transformation does not count against your quota.
- You can edit the original product description to remove the trigger and try again, or use a different model (Settings → Quality controls → Override model — Pro feature).
This is rare in normal product copy. If you sell anything in a flagged category and run into it consistently, contact support for routing options.