How credits work

One credit covers one email verification or one email send. Learn how credits are reserved, spent and returned, and when you'll get a low-balance warning.

InboxRoads uses pay-as-you-go credits instead of a monthly subscription. You buy a package of credits and spend them only when you verify or send.

What a credit pays for

Action	Cost
Verifying one email address	1 credit
Sending one campaign email	1 credit
Sending one test email	1 credit

Some things are free:

Duplicates and malformed addresses in a verification job are removed before the cost is calculated, so you're never charged for them.
Suppressed, unsubscribed, bounced and invalid contacts are left out of a campaign's audience automatically, so they don't use credits.

The Billing & credits page always shows the current rates under How credits are used.

Reserved, spent and returned

Credits move through three stages:

Reserved. When you start a verification job or a campaign begins sending, the full estimated cost comes out of your balance at once. This keeps a large job from running out of credits halfway through.
Spent. Reserved credits are used as each address is checked or each email is sent.
Returned. Anything not used goes back to your balance automatically. That includes credits for cancelled jobs or campaigns, and for recipients skipped because they were suppressed or failed to send. Returned credits appear as a Refund in your credit history.

Worked example

Example only: You launch a campaign to 10,000 recipients, so 10,000 credits are reserved. You cancel after 6,000 emails have gone out. The 4,000 unsent credits are returned to your balance.

For a scheduled campaign, credits are reserved when sending starts, not when you schedule it. Make sure your balance covers the send at that time.

Checking your balance and history

Billing & credits → Credit history lists every transaction: purchases, verification, campaign sends, refunds, bonuses, adjustments and expirations. Each row shows the balance before and after, and you can filter by type.

Low-credit warning

When your balance drops below the platform's low-balance threshold, you get an email and an in-app notification titled "Your credit balance is running low". The warning is sent once each time you cross the threshold, and resets after you top up.

You can't start a verification job or launch a campaign without enough credits to cover it. The confirmation screen shows how many more you need and a Buy credits button.

Do credits expire?

It depends on the package. Each package card on Billing & credits shows either no expiry or valid N days. If you hold credits with different expiry dates, the ones expiring soonest are used first.

Key takeaways

1 credit = 1 verification or 1 send, including test emails.
Credits are reserved up front, and anything unused is returned automatically.
Watch for the low-balance email so you can top up before a big send.