Use Dashboard → Billing to check your plan, available balance, renewal date, and payment details.
Choose a plan
Compare individual plans, team plans, and pay-as-you-go options on the pricing page. Before paying, review the amount, billing interval, included usage, taxes, and renewal terms shown at checkout.
Your account's current offer and the Terms of Service govern pricing and access. Available features also depend on your product and build.
Start a trial
Where offered, the current trial flow is a seven-day trial that requires a payment method and starts a subscription. Check the duration and terms displayed at checkout for your offer.
- Open Billing and select the trial offer available to your account.
- Review the included usage, trial end date, and price after the trial.
- Add your payment method and complete checkout.
- Check that Billing shows the trial and its end date.
The subscription becomes paid automatically unless you cancel before the trial ends. Do not treat signing up, uninstalling Trace, or stopping an AI task as cancellation.
Trial usage is limited, including a daily limit. Its included allowance lasts for the trial; crossing into a new calendar month does not restart it. Starting a trial does not add a separate purchased-credit balance.
Understand your balance
Trace can use both your remaining plan allowance and purchased credits to fund supported AI and advanced layout work. Plan allowance is used before purchased top-ups.
- Plan allowance is included usage for the period shown in Billing. It is not a permanent credit balance.
- Purchased credits are pay-as-you-go balance. They can supplement a subscription or fund eligible work without a recurring subscription.
- Trial allowance ends with the trial and is subject to its trial limits.
Check Billing for your available amount and reset date. Do not assume an annual subscription's payment date is also its usage reset date.
AI usage
Ask, Agent, and Plan all use metered AI. A read-only Ask response is not exempt from usage limits. Usage depends on the selected model and the work performed, not simply the number of messages.
When included usage runs out, eligible work can use purchased credits. If no usable allowance or credits remain, AI requests can be refused. A failed allowance check can also temporarily prevent a request; it does not grant free access.
Free Agent Credits
The former signup-credit and monthly free top-up program is retired. Creating an account does not promise free AI usage. If your account has an older balance or a specific offer, use the amount and conditions shown in Billing.
Add credits
- Open Billing.
- Choose the available credit purchase option.
- Review the payment amount and the balance you will receive.
- Complete checkout, then confirm the credited balance in your account.
Purchased credits do not expire under the current credit offer and are separate from expiring plan allowance. Refer to checkout and the current terms for your purchase. If a payment succeeds but the balance has not appeared, contact support with the receipt rather than buying again to resolve it.
Advanced layout charges
Trace's advanced placement and routing uses the same available plan allowance and purchased-credit balance described above. AI chat is metered by model usage; advanced layout is metered by compute time at the displayed layout rate.
Before starting, review the job type, time budget, preflight findings, and displayed cost ceiling. Queue and transfer time are not the same as layout compute time. An incomplete routing result does not, by itself, mean no charge.
The current advanced-layout flow leaves a confirmed user-stopped run unbilled and can retain the last available result. Check the run's final status and reported charge: clicking Stop alone, losing the connection, or stopping chat does not prove this outcome. Stopping does not undo board changes or earlier settled work.
Basic routing (Quick routing in older builds) is free to run, distinct from paid advanced layout. An assistant request for it still uses metered AI. Choosing Switch to advanced routing opens a review; starting the advanced run accepts its displayed charge and preservation settings. See Placement and routing before choosing an engine.
Layout Credits
Older documentation referred to a separate Layout Credits purchase. The current advanced-layout flow uses your shared available balance; do not look for a separate Layout Credits pack to fund it.
Manage your subscription
Open Billing and use the subscription-management controls offered for your plan to review invoices, update your payment method, or change your subscription.
Before confirming a change, check when it takes effect and whether checkout shows a prorated payment or a change at renewal. Use the resulting subscription state, not the click alone, to confirm success.
Cancel
- Open Billing while you can still sign in.
- Follow the cancellation flow for the subscription you want to stop.
- Confirm the cancellation and check its effective date and next-charge information.
- Keep the confirmation for your records.
A paid subscription normally retains access through its paid period when cancellation is scheduled for period end. For a trial, confirm cancellation before the displayed conversion date. If the status is unclear or cancellation fails, contact support before assuming future charges have stopped.
Cancellation is separate from account deactivation. It does not delete local project files. Keep native .trace_sch and .trace_pcb files with their .xo companions and .kicad_pro project file; see Projects.
Teams
Team coverage and project permissions are different. A team subscription can cover eligible members, but membership alone does not grant edit or publish access to every project.
Check the selected team's billing and seat information with its owner. For invitations and project access, see Teams.
Account Deletion
The dashboard's Delete Account action deactivates account access. It attempts subscription cancellation, but a completed deactivation is not proof that cancellation succeeded. Confirm the subscription state in the billing portal before deactivating.
Deactivation is not confirmation that cloud data has been erased, and it does not establish a 30-day purge. See Account settings and contact support for data-erasure requests.
Get billing help
Email hello@buildwithtrace.com with your account email, the affected charge or invoice, and the approximate time. Never send card details, passwords, API keys, or sign-in links.
For academic access questions, see Education.