AI pricing in work tools has two parts: the conversations, and the work an agent does on its own. ClickUp prices them differently, and so does every competitor. This guide reads ClickUp's own Brain and pricing pages as of October 25, 2026, explains what is unlimited and what is metered, and sets out how Kavanah's single credit meter works by comparison.
1. What Brain AI Includes
ClickUp's Brain page lists Brain AI at $9 per user a month. It includes unlimited access to Brain, premium models from ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, and 1,500 AI Super Credits per user a month. ClickUp says Brain conversations are unlimited on any paid plan and do not use Super Credits. Free plans can try Brain before committing.
2. What Draws on Credits
Super Credits pay for the work beyond conversation. ClickUp's pricing page says credits fuel Super Agents, AI Fields, Automations, Image Generation and more, that usage varies by complexity, and that extra credits cost $10 per 10,000, or $0.001 each. The Everything AI plan, at $28 per user a month, adds unlimited Notetaker, AI Fields, AI Automations, Dashboards and image generation, 3x more Super Agent usage and 5,000 Super Credits per user a month. ClickUp marks unlimited features as subject to a fair use policy.
3. The Other Line-Up: Credits Included in the Plan
ClickUp's pricing page also carried a second plan table on October 25, 2026, part of a pricing test. In it, Brain is included in every plan with a pooled allowance: 500 credits per Workspace on Free, 1,000 per user a month on Core, 1,500 on Business, 3,000 on Enterprise and 10,000 on Max. ClickUp's Certified Agents are not included on Free, Core or Business, and are listed as add-on eligible on Enterprise and Max. If you are budgeting, confirm which table your Workspace is billed on.
4. How Kavanah Meters AI
Kavanah has one meter for every AI action: agent chat, task triage, automation, email drafting and digests all spend credits, metered against the tokens the model actually used, at roughly one cent per credit. A typical agent reply costs about 70 credits on the default model; that is the median measured in production, a short question can cost far less, and about one turn in ten runs past 100. Basic includes 100 credits per seat a month and Pro 250, pooled for the whole workspace, and Pay as you go has no allowance and no seat fee. When credits run out, AI pauses until the allowance renews or you buy more, and boards, tasks, chat and time tracking keep working.
5. Nothing Spends While You Are Not Looking
Metered AI is only predictable if you control when it runs. In Kavanah, anything that runs on its own or spends credits, such as scheduled agent runs and automatic estimates, is off until someone turns it on. AI employees work with scoped tools, risky actions can be made to wait for approval, and every action lands in a ledger you can audit. Whatever tool you choose, ask the same question: which AI features run without a person starting them, and which meter do they draw on?
Unlimited conversations and metered agents are a reasonable design, as long as you know which is which. For a side-by-side of how Kavanah, ClickUp, Asana and monday.com price AI, see our ClickUp alternative page.
