Billing & Plans

StudioBrain offers four tiers to match different team sizes and workflows. This guide covers plan comparison, storage, BrainBits credits, sharing, and managing your subscription.

StudioBrain is in closed beta. Plan pricing will be announced at launch. For early access, join the beta waitlist on Discord.

Plan Comparison

How Storage Works

StudioBrain separates storage into two layers:

Image cache (all plans)

A fast, hosted cache of your images at web resolutions and formats, plus thumbnails of 3D objects. The cache is rebuilt automatically from your original files — it is not a backup and is subject to retention periods. It exists so browsing, thumbnails, and offline use keep working even when your primary storage is unreachable. When the cache is full, the oldest entries are evicted automatically; you never need to manage it.

Durable storage (your real assets, full resolution)

Where your original files live. Two options:

• Bring your own storage — the StudioBrain desktop app running as a file server on your machine or network (local storage is unlimited — it’s your hardware), your Google Drive / Azure, or your own S3/R2 bucket. Your content stays on your hardware or in your accounts. Available on every plan, including Free.
• Hosted storage — StudioBrain hosts your assets in the cloud so your projects are always-on and shareable without your machine running. Included with Indie (5 GB) and Team (10 GB/user pooled); expandable with storage packs.

Free tier creates real projects. With bring-your-own storage, Free users get full creation on 2 projects, unlimited on-device AI generation, and the image cache. Upgrading to Indie adds hosted, always-on storage and sharing.

Storage packs

Hosted storage can be expanded in stackable blocks of 20 GB, 100 GB, and 1 TB (pricing announced at launch) from Settings → Billing.

Quota warnings

For hosted durable storage you’ll see a warning at 90% of your quota and an upgrade prompt if you exceed it; new writes are blocked at 110%. The image cache never warns or blocks — it just recycles.

Sharing & Collaboration

• Invites are per-project. Owners grant view or edit access per invite — and yes, Free users can edit projects they’re invited to.
• Guests use the host’s resources. A guest’s uploads count against the host project’s storage, and a guest’s AI generations spend from the BrainBits budget the project owner allocated. Guests start with no BrainBits budget until the owner allocates one.
• Indie sharing: invite up to 3 guests per project; everything they do in your project comes out of your quota. Collaborators with their own Indie plan host their own projects the same way.
• Team sharing: projects are shared across the team workspace, storage and BrainBits pool across all seats, guest count is unlimited, and admins allocate budgets per project.

BrainBits

BrainBits are StudioBrain’s credit system for managed AI operations — a simple, predictable way to use premium AI without managing provider billing.

The three ways to run AI

1. On-device (free, unlimited, every plan) — StudioBrain’s local models run on your own hardware at no cost.
2. Your own API keys (paid plans) — Indie and Team subscribers can register their own provider keys; requests bill to their provider account and consume no BrainBits. Team plans can also register shared, admin-managed team keys.
3. BrainBits (managed) — StudioBrain’s hosted AI service, metered in BrainBits.

How BrainBits work

• Each AI operation consumes BrainBits based on token usage and complexity.
• Your monthly allocation refills at the start of each billing cycle and does not roll over.
• Purchased BrainBits packs (500 and 2000-bit blocks, pricing announced at launch) are added to a balance that is spent after your monthly allocation and expires 365 days from the date of purchase.
• All plans — including Free — can purchase BrainBits packs.

Team BrainBits pooling

On the Team tier, BrainBits pool across all seats (750 per user per month). Administrators can view the pool balance and usage, and allocate per-project budgets. Budgets for guests (including Free users) come out of the same pool — allocate to a shared project and everyone you’ve invited can generate there.

Managing Your Subscription

Subscribing

1. Open Settings > Billing in the app.
2. Select a plan.
3. Choose monthly or annual billing.
4. Complete checkout via Stripe.
5. Your subscription activates immediately.

Upgrading

1. Go to Settings > Billing.
2. Click Change Plan.
3. Select the new tier.
4. Stripe prorates the difference — you pay only the difference for the remaining billing period.

When you upgrade, new features activate immediately, your BrainBits allocation increases to the new tier’s level, and existing data is preserved.

Downgrading

1. Go to Settings > Billing.
2. Click Change Plan.
3. Select the lower tier.
4. The downgrade takes effect at the end of your current billing period.

When you downgrade:

• Features from the higher tier remain available until the end of the current period.
• Hosted content above your new quota becomes read-only until you’re back under it (or export/move it to your own storage).
• Your local data is never affected — all entities, templates, and assets remain on your machine.

Data retention on downgrade

Cancellation

1. Go to Settings > Billing.
2. Click Cancel Subscription.
3. Your plan remains active until the end of the current billing period.
4. After cancellation, your account reverts to the Free tier.

Before cancelling: export your data from Settings > Data Export (a ZIP archive of all entity Markdown files, templates, and rules). Local files are unaffected. Hosted content is retained for 30 days, then archived.

Stripe Customer Portal

StudioBrain uses Stripe for all billing. The customer portal lets you view invoices and billing history, update your payment method and billing address, and download receipts. Access it from Settings > Billing > Manage Subscription.

Enterprise Pricing

Enterprise plans are custom-priced based on team size, usage requirements, and deployment preferences. Contact sales@studiobrain.ai for volume discounts, dedicated infrastructure, custom AI models, on-premise / air-gapped deployment, custom integrations (Perforce, Shotgrid, Jira), SLA guarantees, and compliance requirements.

Next Steps

• Getting Started — Start using StudioBrain
• AI Workshop — Understanding BrainBits usage in AI generation
• Sync & Collaboration — Cloud sync features by tier
• Settings & Configuration — Managing your subscription settings