Sparks (credit system)
Sparks (credit system)
How Sparkian’s credit-based pricing works.
Every Sparkian account runs on Sparks. It is a credit balance that gets deducted with every message you send, instead of billing you by raw token count. This keeps usage predictable, since the cost of a request depends on the model and content you use rather than an opaque per-token rate.
The estimated Spark cost for each model is shown live on that model’s detail panel inside Sparkian, so you have a good idea of the price before you send a message.
How Sparks are estimated
Each model’s detail panel shows a starting cost, like “1+ Sparks / Request” or “25+ Sparks / Request”. The + means this is an estimate, not a fixed price. Sparkian calculates your actual Spark cost based on real usage for that request, not a flat rate per model.
Examples from the model picker:
- Qwen 3.5 Flash (a Lite, general-purpose model) → 1+ Sparks / Request
- Claude Opus 5 (an Advanced, reasoning/coding model) → 25+ Sparks / Request
Why your actual cost can be higher than the estimate
The final Spark cost scales with how much your request actually processes like your message, the AI’s response, any retained chat history, and attachments, all combined. A short, simple message will land close to the model’s listed estimate; a request with a long conversation history or large attachments will cost more, since there’s more for the model to read and respond to.
Knowledge Base fee
Chatting with files through a Data Source (Knowledge Base) adds a flat +5 Sparks per request, on top of the base model cost.
Tips to reduce Spark usage
- Start a fresh chat when switching topics. Older messages in chat history count toward your token total.
- Pick the lightest model tier that can handle the task.
- Upload files you reuse often to a Knowledge Base instead of re-attaching them to every message.
- Combine related questions into a single message rather than sending several small ones.