Billing & usage

Transit AI is a paid product — three tiers, no permanent free plan. New customers can start with a 14-day free trial of the Operator tier (card required, one per customer; it converts to a paid Operator subscription when the trial ends unless you cancel first, and trial usage gets the same monthly AI budget as paid Operator). This page covers how the AI budget works, what happens when you approach or hit your limits, and how Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) gives you an alternative path when you do.

The three plans

Plan	Price	AI models	Monthly AI budget	BYOK
Operator	$29/month	Easy + Medium	Lowest	Included free
Pro	$79/month	All models	Higher	Included free
Max	$199/month	All models	Highest	Included free

Annual billing is 12× the monthly rate — no annual discount. The choice between monthly and annual is “which invoice cadence do you prefer,” not “how much do you save.” Token costs dominate either way.

You can switch plans, cancel, or update payment details anytime from the account page. Plan switches prorate immediately on upgrade and defer to your next billing period on downgrade.

Running Transit AI for a team? See Team plans — one subscription buys a mix of seats for the whole team, with an admin portal for invites and billing.

What is the “monthly AI budget”?

Every subscription tier includes a monthly token allowance for AI queries. The AI in Transit AI uses large language models (Anthropic Claude, OpenAI GPT) that meter usage by input + output tokens. Your tier’s budget is the amount of AI usage included per billing period before you hit the included cap.

Usage doesn’t show as raw dollars in the app — instead the chat panel shows the percentage of your monthly budget consumed. Around 80% you’ll see a banner.

What happens at your limit?

This is the question that matters most when usage is high. There are three escalation points, each with a clear next step.

At ~80% of your monthly budget

A yellow banner appears in the chat panel: “You’ve used 80% of this month’s AI budget.” Four options open at this point:

Wait. Your budget resets at the start of the next billing period. If you’re at 80% and the period ends in a week, you might just want to coast.
Let overage run — it’s on by default. Overage is enabled by default on every paid plan, so by default the AI simply keeps running past your budget cap; usage past the cap bills at 1.25× the AI provider’s per-token cost, capped at 2× your monthly subscription price. So a $79 Pro plan would bill at most $158 above the base for a single month. You can turn overage off anytime from your account page (or straight from the budget banner in the desktop app); with it off, the AI pauses at your budget cap instead of billing past it. Operator tier doesn’t support overage. On a team plan, overage is on by default per member and your admin can turn it off per member — see team overage. Overage is invoiced in whole cents, and any partial cent rounds up — so a fractional $0.001 charge bills as $0.01.
Switch to BYOK. BYOK is included free with every paid tier. Enroll your own Anthropic or OpenAI key in Settings → BYOK in the desktop app, then flip the toggle to Use BYOK. The AI uses your key from there on — your tokens, billed directly by Anthropic or OpenAI to your provider account. No Transit AI budget consumed.
Upgrade your tier. Move from Operator to Pro, or Pro to Max, from the account page. Upgrades pro-rate immediately; you pay the difference between what’s left of your current period and the new tier’s price.

At your budget cap (only if you’ve turned overage off)

Because overage is on by default, you only hit a hard budget cap if you’ve turned it off. If you have: a red banner appears, and the AI stops answering new queries. The chat panel explains why and offers the same options as above, minus “wait” — your budget is already exhausted. You can:

Wait until the billing period resets (same option as before, but now the AI is actually paused, not just warning you)
Turn overage back on and continue with metered billing
Switch to BYOK and continue with your own keys
Upgrade your tier for a larger budget

Existing SSH sessions are unaffected by the AI cap — the terminal still works normally. The cap only applies to the AI assistant.

At your overage cap

Since overage is on by default, if you ran past your budget and exhausted the overage too — i.e., you spent 2× your monthly subscription on token costs in a single period — the AI pauses for the rest of the period. Two options remain:

Switch to BYOK and continue
Upgrade your tier for a larger budget

The 2× cap exists so a runaway prompt loop or compromised credential can’t drain an unlimited amount; we’d rather pause than surprise-bill you.

BYOK — Bring Your Own Key

BYOK is included free with every paid tier (Operator, Pro, Max). Enroll your own Anthropic or OpenAI key in Settings → BYOK in the desktop app and flip the toggle: Use Transit AI (default — we provide the AI keys, metered against your budget) or Use BYOK (you provide an Anthropic or OpenAI key, AI charges go to your provider account).

When BYOK is on:

The AI uses the key you’ve enrolled in Settings → BYOK
Your token usage is billed by Anthropic / OpenAI directly to your account on file with them
Transit AI doesn’t see your provider key beyond passing it through to the provider per-request — the key isn’t stored on Transit AI’s servers
The Transit AI monthly budget isn’t consumed by BYOK requests

Use cases for BYOK:

Compliance. Some organizations require all AI calls to be billed to their own provider account for SOC 2 audit trail.
Heavy usage. A power user who routinely exceeds the included budget may find BYOK cheaper than tier upgrades + overage.
Existing credits. If you have unused Anthropic or OpenAI credits from a trial or partnership, BYOK lets you burn them down through Transit AI.

BYOK is not required for normal use. The default Transit-AI-funded path covers most network engineers comfortably.

Managing your subscription

The account page is the entry point. The page shows your plan, status, and current-period usage. You can:

Switch plan (Operator ↔ Pro ↔ Max) directly from the page. Upgrades take effect immediately and prorate on your next invoice. Downgrades schedule for the start of your next billing period.
Manage subscription opens the hosted billing portal — update payment method, see invoice history, update billing address, or cancel.

Cancellations take effect at the end of the current billing period — the AI keeps working through the period you’ve already paid for. After cancellation, your SSH sessions still work; only the AI assistant becomes unavailable.

If you’re a member of a team plan, the account page hides the self-service controls (your tier and billing are managed by your team admin). See Team plans.

What if I change plans mid-period?

Upgrading (Operator → Pro → Max): The new plan takes effect immediately. You’re charged the pro-rated difference between what’s left of your current period and the new plan’s price. Your monthly AI budget jumps to the new tier’s larger allowance for the rest of the period, with whatever you’ve already used carried over.

Downgrading (Max → Pro, Pro → Operator): Downgrades defer to the start of your next billing period. You keep your current tier’s entitlement (allowance, allowed models) for the rest of the period you’ve paid for; the new (lower) tier kicks in at renewal. No mid-period refund.

Why deferral: without it, a customer could subscribe to Max on day 1, use up the larger allowance, downgrade to Operator on day 28 for a prorated credit, and effectively get most of the higher tier for less than its price. Deferring closes that loop while still letting you change plans freely.

To cancel a scheduled downgrade — say you changed your mind — go back to the account page and pick your current plan again. The schedule is released and your tier stays.

Refreshing the desktop after a plan change: the desktop picks up plan changes within one AI request. If the app is idle, the change shows up within ~30 minutes. You shouldn’t need to sign out and back in.

Refunds

Refund requests are handled case by case. Reach out at support@transitai.app within 30 days of the charge and tell us what happened — we’ll work with you.

Pricing — current rates + sign-up
Getting Started — full sign-up walkthrough
Team plans — one subscription for a whole team
Billing scenarios — exactly how every upgrade, downgrade, seat change, cancellation, and overage charge is computed, with worked examples and invoice line items
Security model — how the AI is structurally prevented from reading your credentials or running arbitrary commands
FAQ — common pre-purchase questions