Every free account starts with 18 AI generations. Each generation is one round-trip with the AI, whether that is the initial build, an edit, or a follow-up message. Once you publish on the Published plan, generations are unlimited and credits no longer apply.
The initial build of a site is one generation. Each edit you make in chat afterward is one generation. A change to copy on a single page and a major restructuring of the homepage both count the same; the cost is per round-trip with the AI, not per file changed.
Things that do not spend a generation include opening or navigating around a project, viewing the preview, scrolling through past chat messages, looking at version history, or rolling back to a previous version.
Plan mode is the toggle next to the chat input that lets the AI talk through ideas without changing your site. Plan-mode messages bill on every other turn rather than every turn, so a back-and-forth conversation in Plan mode costs roughly half as many credits as the same exchange in Build mode.
If you are still figuring out direction, exploring options in Plan mode before committing is a good way to make 18 generations cover both planning and execution comfortably.
When your credit count reaches zero, the chat input is blocked from sending new generations and you will see a prompt to upgrade. Anything you have already built remains in your account exactly as it was; you do not lose work. Upgrading to Published immediately removes the cap, and any in-progress draft picks up where it left off.
Free credits do not refresh on a monthly cycle. They are a one-time allowance that gets you through the evaluation phase, after which most accounts upgrade. If you have a specific reason to need more credits before upgrading, contact us through the chat bubble at the bottom right of any RebelSites page.
The biggest credit savings come from a strong starting prompt. A specific, detailed initial description usually means fewer follow-up edits to fix things you could have specified at the start. Beyond that, sending one focused change per message is more reliable than packing several changes into one and then having to undo and retry. And Plan mode is genuinely cheap to think out loud in, so use it for direction-setting questions rather than burning Build-mode generations on exploratory ideas.
