Pass definition
You only pay for videos that pass. Here's what "passed" means.
The pass definition
A job is written to the database as status = 'passed' in one statement, and only when the fidelity/mechanism gate, the claims gate, and the script gate have all returned a clean verdict for that attempt — see how the gates work. There is no state between "still checking" and "passed" that a customer is ever charged for.
The receipt
The moment a job passes, it is stamped with a receipt: a receipt id, the four gate verdicts (fidelity, mechanism, claims, script — all recorded as "pass"), the policy pack version the gates actually ran under (policy v1), which fidelity question the style you picked asks, the judge's own notes, and an excerpt of the transcript that cleared the script check. Nothing on the receipt is written before the pass is recorded, and nothing is added afterward.
You only pay for passes
Credits are held while a job is admitted so we know the workspace can afford it, but a credit is only actually spent — burned — by a single database write that is guarded to match a job only once it is already marked passed, only once (a job can never be burned twice), and only if the workspace balance still covers the full amount. A failed job never reaches that guard, so it never burns anything.
Credits expire 60 days after they're granted
Every credit grant — the free first reel, a one-off purchase, or a plan's monthly allotment — is stamped with an expiry 60 days after it was granted (Autopilot plan credits roll one extra month). See Terms §2 for the full billing rules, including the pay-as-you-go rates that apply once a plan's included credits run out.