Auto-top-up settings

What auto-top-up is

Auto-top-up is a single opt-in control that keeps your Intelligence Unit (IU) balance from hitting zero without you having to remember to buy more. When you turn it on, you set two numbers: a balance threshold and a charge amount. If your IU balance ever drops below the threshold, Verinode emails you 24 hours ahead of time, then charges your saved card the amount you chose and credits the matching IUs to your prepaid balance.

It is off for every account by default. Verinode never charges a card you have not explicitly authorized, and turning auto-top-up on is the only way that changes. You can turn it off again at any time; doing so does not refund IUs you have already been charged for.

This is one of three ways to add IUs beyond your monthly allotment, alongside one-time bundles and a recurring monthly subscription. See Account & Billing: Intelligence Units for how the three compare, and read the last section below before you turn auto-top-up on: a one-time bundle is almost always the better deal.

Where to find it

Open Settings and go to the Membership tab. Under Add Capacity, click Add Intelligence Units, or from the Compare & Manage block click Manage membership. Either route lands you at /account/billing, titled Intelligence Units on the page itself, with a Billing label above the title and a USD / CAD currency toggle in the top right. Auto-top-up is its own section on that page, below the balance summary and the three IU-purchase options, ahead of any current recurring subscription you have. See Buying Intelligence Units: bundles vs recurring for the rest of that page.

The balance summary above it

Before the Auto-top-up section, the page shows where your balance stands, which is the context the threshold you set is measured against:

• Available: your total usable IU balance right now, combining every bucket (included, status bonus, recurring subscription, and prepaid). If you are paused, a line reads "AI is paused. Operator-initiated work is queued."
• This month: how many of your monthly included IUs you have used, written as "X of Y included used (Z%)", with a progress bar underneath. The bar turns copper once usage passes 80%; below that it is teal.
• If you have any prepaid bundle IUs sitting on your account, a line under the bar reads "+ N prepaid bundle IUs available."

See Reading your IU balance for a full breakdown of every bucket and what pausing means for AI work in progress.

While your status is loading, the page reads "Loading balance…". If you are on the free Contributor plan, the balance summary is replaced with: "Your Contributor plan includes a starter allocation of Intelligence Units. Become an Executive, Premier, or Reserve Member for a full monthly capacity and every AI feature," with a See tiers → button. Auto-top-up itself is built around a paid-tier pay-as-you-go (PAYG) rate, so it is only meaningful once you are on a paid Membership.

The Auto-top-up section, field by field

The section header reads Auto-top-up, with this description underneath: "Off by default. Opt-in only. When your balance drops below the threshold you set, we charge your saved card for the amount you choose. We email you 24 hours before any charge fires." To its right sits a single toggle button:

• Turn on, shown in copper, when auto-top-up is currently off.
• Turn off, shown in red, when it is currently on.
• Saving…, shown while your change is being written.

Clicking Turn on opts you in immediately, using whichever threshold and charge amount are currently showing in the two fields below (your last saved values if you have set them before, or the defaults if this is your first time: a 50 IU threshold and a $50 charge). The two fields are grayed out and cannot be edited while auto-top-up is off; they become editable only after you turn it on.

The two fields:

• Trigger when balance drops below: a plain number input in IUs. This is the balance floor. The moment your total available IUs drop under this number, the pre-charge clock starts.
• Charge amount per top-up: a dollar or Canadian-dollar amount (matching the currency toggle at the top of the page), for what gets charged to your saved card each time the trigger fires. Beside the field, a live line reads "≈ N IUs at [your tier] rate", showing how many IUs that charge amount buys at your Membership tier's PAYG rate, calculated as you type.

Below both fields, a Save settings button writes whatever is currently in the two fields, but it stays disabled until auto-top-up is turned on. If a save fails, a message appears next to the button (for example, "Could not save settings.").

The PAYG rate behind the numbers

Every top-up charge is billed at your Membership tier's pay-as-you-go rate, the same rate shown further up the page next to the one-time and recurring purchase options: "Pay-as-you-go rate at your tier: $X.XX / IU. Triggers only when auto-top-up is enabled and your balance crosses the threshold you set below." That per-IU rate is what turns your charge amount into an IU count, both in the live preview and in the actual top-up.

The 24-hour pre-charge email

This is the core trust mechanic of the feature: no auto-top-up charge ever fires without an email landing in your inbox first, at least 24 hours ahead of it. The email is titled "We're about to charge [amount] for Intelligence Units," subtitled "24-hour pre-charge notice. Required before any auto-top-up fires." The body reads:

"Your Intelligence Unit balance has dropped below your auto-top-up threshold of [N] IUs. Tomorrow at this time we'll charge your saved card [amount] and credit [N] IUs to your prepaid balance at your tier rate."

It then links you straight back to this settings page: "If you'd rather not auto-charge, or want to change the amount or threshold, you have 24 hours to manage your settings." A footer line repeats the bundle-versus-auto-top-up math (see below), because the 24-hour window is deliberately built as a chance to reconsider, not just a notice.

If you do nothing, the charge fires after the 24 hours pass and your balance is still under the threshold. If your balance recovers on its own in the meantime (say, your monthly allotment resets), no charge fires.

Turning it on

1. 1Open Settings → Membership and click through to the Billing page, or go straight to /account/billing.
2. 2Scroll to the Auto-top-up section.
3. 3Decide your threshold: the IU balance below which you want a top-up to fire. The default is 50 IUs.
4. 4Decide your charge amount: how much to charge your card each time. The default is $50 (or C$50). Watch the "≈ N IUs at [tier] rate" line update as you type, so you know what that amount actually buys.
5. 5Click Turn on. This immediately saves the values shown and opts you in.
6. 6If you want different numbers than what auto-top-up just opted you in with, adjust the two fields and click Save settings.

Turning it off

Click Turn off at any time. This takes effect immediately: no future charge will fire, and no email will go out for it. It does not touch or refund any top-up that has already been charged, and it does not change your monthly allotment or any prepaid IUs already sitting on your account.

Why a bundle usually beats it

Verinode says this plainly on the page, right under the two fields: "A 250-IU one-time bundle is consistently a better deal than auto-top-up. The bundle's per-IU price is about 30 to 50% lower than your tier's PAYG rate. Most operators see this once and switch." The same math appears again in the footer of the 24-hour pre-charge email, so you see it right before a charge would go through, not just once on this page.

Here is the concrete version at the Executive tier: the PAYG rate is $0.40 per IU in USD, the rate a $50 auto-top-up charge is billed at (≈ 125 IUs). A 250-IU one-time bundle costs $65, which works out to $0.26 per IU, about 35% cheaper per IU than the PAYG rate. The recurring monthly subscription at the same size is $55, or $0.22 per IU, cheaper still. The gap widens further at larger bundle and subscription sizes, and the exact PAYG rate you are compared against depends on your Membership tier (Premier and Reserve carry lower PAYG rates than Executive). See Buying Intelligence Units: bundles vs recurring for the full bundle and subscription price list at every size.

If you are on a current recurring subscription

If you already subscribe to a recurring monthly IU bundle, a separate Current recurring subscription section appears further down the page, showing the IUs you get each month and the price, with a note that you can cancel any month from this page or through the Stripe customer portal. Canceling takes effect at the end of your current billing cycle, and any IUs already credited stay in your balance. Auto-top-up and a recurring subscription are independent settings, having one does not require or disable the other. See Managing a recurring IU subscription for details on canceling and what happens to a subscription mid-cycle.

Related reading

• Account & Billing: Intelligence Units
• Buying Intelligence Units: bundles vs recurring
• Reading your IU balance
• Managing a recurring IU subscription
• Understanding your margin

Data sources