What are Credits?
Credits are Photocrowd’s on-platform currency, and you use them to enter photo contests. You get credits in one of two ways:
- Buying a paid plan (Challenger, Pro or Master) which gives you a monthly credit allowance
- Buying a credit pack, which is a one-off purchase. These are referred to on the platform as ‘extra’ credits.
Paid plans
We offer three paid plans. They are paid for annually, and amongst other benefits they give you a monthly credit allowance.
At the point when you purchase a plan, and then every month after that on the same day, your plan credits are topped up with the following number of credits:
- 1,000 credits for Challenger plans
- 2,200 credits for Pro plans
- 3,500 credits for Master plans
If you buy your paid Pro plan for example on the 17th November, you will immediately receive 2,200 credits, and then every month on the 17th, for 11 months after that, you’ll receive an additional 2,200 credits.
Rollover credits
At the end of your plan month, you can rollover up to 50% of your monthly allowance in unspent credits.
So in our previous example, if you’re on the Pro plan and by the 17th December you have only spent 1,000 of your plan credits and have 1,200 unspent, you’ll be able to rollover 1,100 of them, and will receive an additional 2,200 credits because it’s the start of your new month, taking your new plan credits balance to 3,300.
Credit packs
If you don’t want to commit to an annual subscription, you have the option to buy a credit pack instead.
These are one-off purchases. You choose how many extra credits you want to buy, and they’re then added to your credit balance as ‘extra’ credits.
Whilst they are spent in exactly the same way as plan credits, extra credits have one main difference, which is that they don’t expire until 12 months after they’re purchased, meaning that there’s no hurry to spend them. And they don’t count towards any rollover calculations if you also have a paid plan at a later date.
Running out of credits
If you’re on the free Crowd tier and have no credits then you either:
- Buy a paid plan, or
- Buy a credit pack
If you’re already on a paid plan then you have 3 options:
- Wait until your monthly plan credits top-up automatically, or
- Upgrade to a higher paid plan if you’re on the Challenger or Pro plan, and get more credits straight away, or
- Buy a 1,000-credit top-up pack
Top-up packs
These are only available to users on a paid plan. They are cost effective ways to buy extra credits if you find that in a given month you have run out of credits and want to enter more contests.
If you find that you’re running out of credits every month then you should upgrade to the next plan tier, but if running out of credits is just an occasional thing, then these top-up packs are a good option.
The cost of these top-up packs drops, the higher the paid plan you are on. And these extra credits expire 12 months after you purchase them, so you can spread their usage over a longer period.
Plan credits vs extra credits - which are spent first?
It is common to find that you have both plan credits and extra credits on your account. Photocrowd will automatically work out which type of credit to use when you are paying for something.
In most situations the plan credits will be spent first, as they are subject to rollover limitations at the end of your plan month, and so usually expire before the extra credits.
Extra credits, which have a 12-month expiry, will only be used in two circumstances:
- When you have run out of plan credits
- When the expiry date of the extra credits is sooner than your next monthly plan top-up date. For example if it’s the 6th June and you go to enter a contest. You have some extra credits that expire on 12th June, and your next monthly plan top-up date is the 18th June. Your extra credits that expire on the 12th will be used first, and only when they have run out will your plan credits then be used.
Upgrading your paid plan
When you upgrade a paid plan, for example you upgrade from Challenger to Pro, or from Pro to Master, you will start a new 12-month period on the tier that you upgrade to.
The price you will pay will be the annual price of the plan you are upgrading to minus a credit that is applied for the time that you had left on your previous plan that you’re upgrading from.
That calculation takes into account both the number of full months remaining on your current plan, as well as your current plan credits balance, including any that have rolled over.
For example, you are on the Pro tier, and you purchased it on 5th March for £78. It is now 13th July, and you want to upgrade to the Master tier. You have a plan credits balance of 1,100. In this case you have 7 full months to be refunded (7 x £78/12 = £45.50). The refund for the month you are in is worked out based on how many of that month’s credits have been spent. In this case you’ve spent half of your 2,200 monthly credits, so your refund is 0.5 x £78/12 = £3.25. The credit applied to your upgrade to the Master tier is therefore £48.75, meaning you would pay £68.25 for 12 months of Master plan.
In a situation where you also have some rolled over plan credits, these are taken into account. If in the above example your plan credits balance had actually been 3,300, the refund for the current month would have been 1.5 x £78/12 = £9.75, as you had one and a half month’s worth of plan credits unspent.
When you upgrade, your plan credits balance is zeroed and you then receive your new monthly allowance for the plan you are upgrading to.
Deleting then reactivating your account
If you delete your account but then reactivate it at a later date, your credit balance will reflect where you would have been if you hadn't deleted your account.
If you were on a paid plan and you are still on a paid plan when you reactivate your account, then you will still have been receiving monthly plan credits. You will have been rolling over up to 50% of your unspent credits each month.
If you do a hard delete of your account but then change your mind in the 30-day cooling-off period, the same applies, and your credit balance will reflect where you would have been had you not activated the hard deletion.
Withdrawing an image from a contest
If you use credits to enter a contest, and then withdraw that image from the contest, the slot will remain open for you with a PAID tag on it. You will not be refunded for that slot, but it will remain open for as long as the contest remains open for entries, and you can enter another image in its place.