One-time credits are different from subscription allowances
The AppSumo plan table explicitly labels its balances one-time. Do not transfer the recurring Pro or Agency allowances from a normal subscription pricing page to this deal. Building and publishing a tool is different from running it: a model call and added actions can consume credits when a user actually uses the tool.
The model picker shows usage costs, and actions such as web search can add to a run. A long multi-step flow may make several calls. Forecast your costs from completed client tasks, including retries and retrieval, rather than calling one credit one answer.
Tier 2 and higher let you connect supported provider keys. Those providers then bill the relevant AI requests; the lifetime payment does not prepay that bill. Hosted on-demand usage is the other route. Set a spending limit and check which actions remain platform-metered for your exact configuration.
In an October 29 founder reply, on-demand credits are quoted at $0.009 each. At that quoted rate, 1,000 additional credits cost $9 before any applicable charges; this is a cost example, not a guarantee of a fixed number of outputs. The founder notes that some conversations use a fraction of a credit while expensive models can use dozens. Recheck the live rate before enabling paid usage.