Usage Limits
How Atlas credits work, switching between models, and tips for conserving your daily allowance.
Chat Credits (Daily Cap)
- Allocation: You receive 500 credits per day for AI chat. The header shows remaining / 500 (for example
438 / 500). - What spends credits: Sending messages in chat — including follow-ups, answers to multiple-choice questions, and Atlas's replies. Cost grows with how long and complex each exchange is (longer text, more steps, deeper research-style answers).
- What does not spend credits: Browsing the dashboard, opening and managing strategy cards, portfolio tracking, settings, and running backtests on your own strategies.
Reset: Credits refill on a daily schedule at midnight UTC. Unused credits do not roll over — you start again at 500 after each reset.
Running out: When you hit 0, chat is blocked until the next reset. The UI shows a message such as "Credits exhausted. Resets in Xh Ym." with a countdown. You can still use the rest of Atlas while you wait.
When your balance drops below 50, the counter turns red as a heads-up.
Switching Models (Atlas Lite vs Atlas)
| Model | Typical Use | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Atlas Lite (Default) | Fast answers, straightforward strategy searches | 3x–4x lower cost per exchange |
| Atlas | Harder questions, comparisons, multi-step reasoning | Higher cost per exchange |
You may switch at any time between messages. If you are near the end of your daily credits, Lite is the safer default for simple searches; switch to Atlas when you need extra depth.
Saving Credits When a Chat Gets Long
Atlas uses your current session's history so follow-ups make sense — but every new message can include the whole thread when Atlas replies. As a chat grows very long, each send tends to cost more credits than the same question asked in a short thread.
Practical habit: When you move on to a new topic or a new search and the sidebar thread is already long, click New Chat instead of continuing in the same session. You keep older chats in the list if you need them — just start a clean context so the next questions don't drag unrelated messages into every reply.
Quick checklist: (1) Prefer Atlas Lite for simple jobs. (2) Use New Chat for unrelated questions after a long thread. (3) Put the important constraints in message one.
Other Limits
Sometimes Atlas shows a short message if something is busy, unavailable, or needs a retry. Follow any on-screen instruction ("wait," "try again," and so on). If nothing helps after a short wait, reach out via AlgoAlpha Support.