AI Quotas and Limits
Every AI generation on Onflow Ads is metered against your account's allowance. AI is measured in actions, not money — nothing here touches your wallet. This page explains how the meters work, what changes them, and exactly what happens when you hit a wall.
The two allowances
You have two independent allowances, with two independent meters at the top of the AI Creative Studio.
| Allowance | What spends it | Windows | Resets |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI text actions | Studio Generate and Refine, plus every 🤖 AI text helper across the product (coaches, explainers, drafts) | Per day and per month — both must have room | Daily at 00:00 UTC; monthly on the 1st of the month |
| AI images | Every AI image generation — Studio Ad image, the booking composer's 🎨 Generate image, Subscriber Exchange creatives, the Boost storefront hero | Per month and per day — both must have room | Monthly on the 1st; daily at 00:00 UTC |
Spending one has no effect on the other. Generating an image never reduces your text actions.
The two-window rule
Each allowance is capped twice: once for the current day and once for the current calendar month. A generation is blocked as soon as either window is full.
Two consequences worth knowing:
- If you still have monthly text actions left but have used today's daily amount, you wait for the daily reset at 00:00 UTC — an upgrade isn't the only path.
- If you've used the whole month's images but today's daily cap is untouched, you wait for the 1st of the month.
The number the Studio shows you as remaining is always the smaller of the two windows, because that's the one that will actually stop you.
Reading your meters
The status strip at the top of https://onflowads.com/telegram/dashboard/ai-studio shows:
- a tier pill naming your current plan,
- AI text today — used and limit, with a progress bar,
- AI images this month — used and limit, with a progress bar.
If the team has set your account up as an unlimited testing account, a meter shows the number used followed by Unlimited instead of a used-or-limit pair.
Your exact allowance depends on your plan and can be adjusted by the team over time, so this guide doesn't print fixed figures. The live numbers for your account are always shown on the two meters, and repeated in the message you get when you hit a limit.
What each plan gets
- Text actions are included on every plan, from Free upwards. Each step up the plan ladder raises both the daily and the monthly text allowance.
- Image generation is reserved for the top plans. On every other plan the image allowance is zero by design, and the Studio shows the unlock panel instead of the description box. The panel you see when you hit the gate names the plan that unlocks images and how many images a month it includes.
- Some individual helpers have their own plan floor. A helper your plan doesn't include says so when you click it and names the plan that unlocks it. This is separate from your numeric allowance: you can have text actions left and still not have access to a particular helper.
Compare the plans at https://onflowads.com/pricing, or from the See plans and Upgrade buttons in the Studio. See also the Plans section.
If your Telegram account is linked to your Onflow Ads account, AI actions in the Onflow Ads Telegram bot and on the website spend from the same shared allowance. Using the bot's AI reduces what's left in the website Studio, and the other way round. When you link a Telegram account, existing usage is merged, so nobody ends up with a double allowance. A bot user who has never linked an Onflow Ads account is metered separately in the bot.
What happens when you hit a limit
Instead of a bare error, Onflow Ads shows a personalised panel under the message. It names the exact wall you hit and the ways forward:
| Wall | What the panel says | Your options |
|---|---|---|
| Plan cap | "You've used today's AI actions", with how many actions your plan gives and how many the next plan up gives | Wait for the reset at 00:00 UTC, or use the Upgrade button |
| Top of the ladder | "You're on the top AI tier — your allowance resets at 00:00 UTC." | Wait for the reset — there's nothing to sell you |
| Image gate | "AI images are a ... feature" — the panel names the plan that unlocks them, and the monthly image count it includes | Upgrade, or use your own artwork |
| Reliability | "Your AI quota is limited by reliability", naming your band and score | Improve reliability to restore your full quota for free, or upgrade for a bigger allowance now |
| Account under review | "AI is paused while your account is under review. It comes back automatically the moment the review is resolved — no upgrade needed." | Nothing — access returns by itself |
Checking this panel never spends an AI action. It is calculated from your account and the plan ladder directly, so it can never promise an allowance the checkout wouldn't honour.
How reliability affects your AI
Your account's single reliability score (0 to 10, shown in your dashboard at https://onflowads.com/telegram/dashboard/reliability) modifies your AI allowance. There is no separate AI reputation — it reads the one score you already have.
| Reliability standing | Effect on AI |
|---|---|
| Trusted (9.0 and up) | Bonus text headroom on top of your plan's allowance, on both the daily and the monthly window |
| Fair / Reliable (5.0 to 8.9) | Your full plan allowance |
| Building (4.0 to 4.9) | Text allowance throttled to roughly half; image generation off until you're back to Fair |
| Low (below 4.0) | Text allowance reduced to the Free-plan baseline; image generation off |
| Under review (account frozen) | All AI paused until the review is resolved |
While you're throttled, the Studio shows an amber note: "Your AI limits are reduced while your reliability recovers — a clean streak restores them."
Two important points:
- The image plan gate is absolute. A high reliability score does not unlock image generation on a plan that doesn't include it. Reliability can only take images away, never grant them.
- Reliability can't be bought, only earned. Reaching the Fair band (5.0) restores your full plan quota at no cost. See Reliability score.
Misusing AI features (see Content rules for AI) can lead to reliability penalties after human review, and those penalties shrink your AI allowance. Everything feeds the same score.
Fair-use pacing
After each generation, the button shows a short live countdown — for example "Please wait 30s" — before you can run it again. The exact wait is displayed on the button and ticks down to zero on its own.
Pacing is separate from your quota. It spends nothing and simply spaces requests out so the service stays responsive for everyone. It is also skipped when a wait wouldn't help: if you're signed out, or blocked by a plan or quota wall, the button re-enables immediately.
Very rapid bursts of requests can additionally return "Too many attempts. Please wait a minute and try again." Nothing is charged when that happens — wait briefly and continue.
The refund guarantee
Your allowance is reserved before the AI runs and handed back automatically if anything fails:
- the AI errors out or returns an empty result,
- the service is temporarily down,
- your request times out,
- your connection drops mid-request.
Whenever this happens the message explicitly says "no action was used" or "no image was used." You are only ever charged for a generation that actually delivered a result.
Two more things are always free:
- A content-policy decline — the check runs before any generation, so a declined prompt costs nothing.
- Reading the limit panel, the meters, or any lock screen.
Temporary unavailability
If the AI service is down or still being configured:
- actions return "AI is temporarily unavailable. Please try again shortly.",
- the Studio may show the banner "AI is being set up by the team. This page will start working as soon as it's switched on."
Your quota is untouched in both cases, and pages that offer AI narratives fall back to their plain numbers.
FAQ
When exactly do my allowances reset?
Daily windows roll over at 00:00 UTC. Monthly windows roll over at 00:00 UTC on the 1st of each month. Both are UTC regardless of where you are, so the reset time is the same for everyone.
Do unused actions roll over?
No. Each window starts fresh; anything unused in the previous window is not carried forward.
Do Generate and Refine have separate limits?
No. They share the one text allowance, together with every 🤖 helper across the product.
Does an upgrade give me my allowance back immediately?
Upgrading raises your limit for the current windows, so if you were blocked by a plan cap you get headroom straight away. If you were blocked by reliability or an open review, an upgrade does not lift that — those paths are described above.
Why does my limit look smaller than the plan page says?
Almost always reliability. If the amber note is showing under your meters, your allowance is throttled while your score recovers; reaching Fair restores it.
Do AI actions cost money from my wallet?
No. AI is metered in actions included with your plan. Your wallet balance is never debited for a generation.
I have text actions left but a helper says it's locked. Why?
That's a plan gate on that specific helper, not your quota. The message names the plan that unlocks it.
Next: Content rules for AI — the one thing that can cost you more than an action.