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How Photo Studio uses your AI credits

Photo Studio is one of several AI-powered tools in BiteTheMenu — the cashier assistant, the menu description writer, and the menu builder all share the same monthly AI credit budget. This page is about Photo Studio’s slice specifically: how much each generation costs, where to check your balance, and what happens if you run dry mid-week.

What it costs

Every photo you generate has a fixed credit cost based on the resolution you pick before tapping Generate. The current pricing:

  • 1K — 5 credits per photo. Fine for the smart menu and social media; invisible difference on a phone screen.
  • 2K — 12 credits per photo. The right default for the public website.
  • 4K — 30 credits per photo. For print materials, very large screens, and hero images.

The price is shown in the bottom bar of the Studio page before you tap Generate, so you can swap resolution if your balance is low.

A handful of practical reference points: with the Starter monthly plan (500 credits), you can generate 100 photos at 1K, 41 at 2K, or 16 at 4K — and you can mix sizes freely. With the Pro plan (2,000 credits), those numbers quadruple. The credits also cover the rest of your AI use; if you’re heavy on the AI menu writer, the per-photo headroom is lower.

The rule

A photo is only billed once it actually generates. If the AI provider fails or your phone disconnects before the request reaches our server, no credits are deducted.

Where your balance lives

Settings → AI in the admin sidebar. The page shows your monthly allotment, what’s left, what you’ve used so far this period, and a per-feature breakdown. Photo Studio shows up as three line items in that breakdown — one for each resolution tier — so you can see exactly where your budget is going.

The page also shows when your monthly balance resets. The reset happens on your venue’s billing anniversary day each month — by default, the day of the month your venue first activated AI.

What happens when you run out

When you try to generate a photo and don’t have enough credits, the Generate button still appears clickable, but the request fails before any AI work happens. You’ll see an error message at the bottom of the page telling you which function tried to bill and how short you are. No photo gets created and no credits get charged.

To get more credits you have two options:

  1. Buy a top-up pack — Settings → AI shows the available credit packs (500, 2,500, 10,000 credits at fixed prices). Top-up credits never expire and are used after your monthly balance is drained, so you can buy a pack mid-month without losing what you have.
  2. Upgrade your monthly plan — also from Settings → AI. The upgrade takes effect immediately and the new monthly allotment is applied on your next billing anniversary.

Both flows show the price before you commit. If you’d prefer to pace your usage instead, downgrading from 2K to 1K cuts the per-photo cost by more than half with no visible difference on phone-sized menus.

How a refund works (when something goes wrong)

If your generation fails partway through — the AI provider returned an error, our system couldn’t save the result, your network dropped at exactly the wrong second — the credits are refunded automatically. You see a “failed” entry in your gallery (which you can delete) and the credits go back into the same bucket they came out of (monthly first, then top-up).

You don’t have to file a ticket or wait. The reservation/settle/refund flow happens within seconds of the failure.

Worked example

Sofia runs the marketing for a small wine bar and the venue is on the Starter plan — 500 credits a month. She wants to photograph eight new natural wines for the spring menu refresh.

She decides 2K is the right size — the website matters, but no one’s printing posters. That’s 12 credits per photo × 8 wines = 96 credits, or about 19% of her monthly budget. She also wrote three menu descriptions earlier in the week using the AI writer (1–3 credits each, call it 10 total), and used the cashier assistant a handful of times during last weekend’s busy service (about 20 credits). So her starting point is around 470 credits available.

She generates the eight bottle shots in one sitting. Her balance after: 470 − 96 = 374 credits remaining, with two weeks until her billing anniversary. Plenty of room.

The next day, one of the photos looks weird — the label glare is wrong. She generates it again (12 credits) using the same style. New balance: 362.

She opens Settings → AI to confirm the breakdown. The “Photo Studio — 2K enhancement” line shows 108 credits used this period (9 generations × 12). The “AI writer” line shows 10. The “cashier assistant” line shows 20. The total adds up to 138, which matches the 500 − 362 she sees in her balance pill at the top.

Three weeks later her plan rolls over and her balance goes back to 500.