Short version: if you publish an app with AI features, you — the owner — pay for them. Every time one of your app's visitors uses an AI feature you built in, it uses credits from your Overskill balance. Not theirs. Yours.
This trips people up, so here's exactly how it works.
What counts as AI in your app
We mean AI features that run for your visitors while they use your live app — not the AI you use in the editor to build it. For example:
- A chatbot or AI assistant on your site
Generate
buttons (write a summary, draft a reply, suggest ideas)- Image generation your users trigger
- Text or audio generation powered by Overskill
If your app does any of that, those features keep running — and keep using credits — for as long as your app is live and people are using it.
Who gets charged
You do. The credits come out of the balance on the team that owns the app. It doesn't matter who the visitor is or whether they have an Overskill account — the AI work is billed back to you, the creator.
Think of it like hosting: your visitors don't pay your bill, you do. The upside is your users get a smooth experience with nothing to sign up for; the responsibility is that you're covering the AI cost on their behalf.
How often you're charged
Per action, not per visit. Each individual AI request your app makes — one chatbot reply, one generated image, one summary — uses credits on its own. Ten visitors each generating five images is fifty charges, not one. A longer or more complex request uses more credits than a short one, the same way building does.
What this means before you launch
If your app has AI features that visitors will use, plan for it:
- Estimate the volume. Roughly how many AI actions will your users take per month? Multiply that out.
- Watch your balance after launch, not just while building. Usage continues in the background as people use your live app.
- Keep enough headroom (or a credit pack on hand) so a burst of traffic doesn't run you dry mid-month.
Can I use my own AI account instead?
Not with a switch. There's no setting that moves Overskill's built-in AI features over to your own OpenAI, Anthropic, or other AI account. Built-in AI always runs on your Overskill credits.
If you do want some AI usage billed to your own provider account, you can build that as a custom feature:
- In the editor, open Dashboard → Env Vars and save your provider key under a name of your own, such as
MY_OPENAI_API_KEY. The plain provider names (likeOPENAI_API_KEY) are reserved and can't be used. - Ask the AI to build a server endpoint that calls that provider with your key, and to have your feature use that endpoint instead of the built-in AI.
Calls that go through that endpoint are billed by your provider, not your Overskill credits. You're responsible for that code and your provider bill, so it suits owners who already have an AI account and expect heavy use. If you'd like a hand planning it, contact support.
Note: the default and simplest path is to let Overskill handle the AI and bill your credits. If you'd rather your visitors fund their own AI usage, see Monetize AI usage in your app with buyer credits.
What to read next
- What are credits? — how the meter works overall
- Out of credits — what now? — your options when the balance hits zero
- Credit packs vs subscriptions — the cheapest way to keep usage covered