How credits work
Hero Marketer is pay as you go. There are no plans and no monthly fee. One credit costs $1. You buy credits in packs of 20 for $20. Credits do not expire. Prices are in US dollars.
You do not need a subscription. Auto top up is optional. It is a yearly credit subscription that buys 20 credits for $20 when your balance goes below 5 credits. You can cancel it at any time. See Set up auto top up.
There are no free credits and no free trial. A new account starts with a balance of 0 credits.
What is free
You can do these things at no cost, also with a balance of 0:
- Sign up, and connect your first Google Ads account.
- Open your dashboard, with live numbers.
- Open your campaigns, ad groups, ads, keywords, and search terms.
- Create and edit reports and dashboards. The AI brief on a saved report is not free.
- Read and resolve alerts in the Alerts inbox.
- Export a saved report to CSV. Export CSV is on KPI summary, Performance over time, and Campaign breakdown reports.
- Download a landing page wireframe as Markdown.
- Publish a campaign that you made in the campaign wizard. The AI steps in the wizard use credits.
- Pause or enable a campaign on the All campaigns page.
- View, tag, and download the ad images that you made in Create images. The All images tab stays open at a balance of 0. But the Create tab needs a balance above 0.
Two items are free one time for each Google Ads account that you connect:
- The free scan. It runs when you connect the account.
- Your first dashboard AI summary. Click Write my summary to get it.
Each free item runs one time for you on each Google Ads account. If you disconnect the account and connect it again, you do not get the free items again. If the free AI summary fails, it is still used.
PDF export does not use credits. But you must have a balance above 0 to export a PDF. This applies to dashboard, report, and landing page wireframe PDFs. You can export 3 PDFs of each type in 10 minutes, one at a time.
What costs credits
Credits pay for AI work and for the daily checks on your accounts.
| What | Typical cost |
|---|---|
| A Hero AI question | about 0.2–1.5 credits. A quick lookup costs less than a deep dive. A deep dive (why, audit, what should I change) can cost more than 1.5 credits. |
| A dashboard AI summary, after your first free one | about 0.01 credits |
| The AI brief on a saved report | a fraction of a credit. When the brief is complete, a message shows the exact cost. Reports have no free brief. |
| Ad copy in the campaign wizard | about 0.2 credits |
| Keyword research in the campaign wizard | about 0.1 credits |
| A read of your product website | under half a credit |
| AI sitelinks (Write with AI) | a fraction of a credit |
| Ad styles and looks in Create images, one time for each product | about 0.8 credits |
| One more look tried on your brand in Create images | about 0.13 credits |
| A change to your ad styles | about 0.7 credits. Each look that you tried adds about 0.13 credits. |
| Three ad images in one batch | about 0.6 credits. One image uses about 0.1 credits. |
| A change to an ad image | about 0.1 credits |
| Daily checks for alerts and automations | 0.25 credits a day for each account |
Hero Marketer reads your product website when you connect another Google Ads account or add a product. It also reads the website before the first campaign, or before Create images, for a product that has no product context yet. In your credit activity, this read shows as Website analysis.
These are typical figures, not a price list. The exact cost of each action is in your credit activity.
Why the same action can cost different amounts
AI work is metered. The cost of each AI action comes from the AI model usage of that action. Hero Marketer takes the credits after the action is complete. Because of this, two similar questions can cost different amounts.
A long Hero AI chat costs more for each message. Hero AI reads the full chat again for each message, with the files that you attached. Each chat shows Session credits used. Start a new chat for a new topic.
Hero AI asks you before it sends a message with a high cost. The dialog This message could be pricey opens when the estimated cost is 2 credits or more. The estimated cost must also be at least a quarter of your balance.
Minimum balance for an AI action
Each AI action checks your balance before it starts. The minimum balance is not the cost of the action.
| Action | Minimum balance |
|---|---|
| A Hero AI message | 1 credit |
| Keyword research in the campaign wizard | 1 credit |
| Ad copy in the campaign wizard | 0.5 credits |
| A read of your product website | 0.5 credits |
| AI sitelinks | 0.3 credits |
| A dashboard AI summary or a report brief | 0.1 credits |
| Ad styles in Create images | 1.2 credits. The styles step starts after the website read, so this minimum includes the two steps. |
| A change to your ad styles | 0.9 credits, plus 0.15 credits for each look that you tried |
| A batch of ad images | 0.55 credits, plus 0.05 credits for each idea, plus 0.2 credits for each image |
| One more look tried on your brand in Create images | 0.15 credits |
| A change to an ad image | 0.15 credits |
If your balance is below the minimum, the Not enough credits for this dialog opens. If an action costs more than your balance, the full cost of that action becomes unpaid usage, and your balance does not change. Hero Marketer takes the full cost when your balance covers it. Until then, the next AI action cannot start.
The daily rate for monitoring
Hero Marketer checks each connected account every day, also when you do not sign in. These daily checks run your alerts and automations. Hero Marketer checks each account at 06:00 in the account's time zone. It checks budget pace and spend spikes every hour from 09:00 to 22:00.
Daily checks cost 0.25 credits a day for each connected account. One account costs about $7.50 a month. The charge starts when you buy credits for the first time. To stop it, turn off all 17 alert types and all automations. Or disconnect the account.
See Monitoring and the daily rate.
When you run low
While daily checks run, Hero Marketer sends you an email when about 7, 3, and 1 days of checks are left. This count includes only the daily rate. Hero AI use can make your credits run out sooner.
When your balance cannot pay for a day of checks, the checks continue for 3 days at no cost. Then monitoring pauses.
Hero Marketer tells you when monitoring pauses. A banner shows in the app, and you get an email.
Nothing is deleted when you run out. Your dashboard and reports continue to work. When you buy credits, monitoring starts again.