The ledger · Volume I

Pricing as honest as a tavern bill.

Pay only for the AI work that actually lands. No seats, no per-table fees, no monthly minimum. The platform itself — worlds, campaigns, parties, sessions, the message log, the gallery — is always free.

First $5 of usage on the house · no card needed to begin

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Tier I

Starter

Everyone signs up here. Enough to roll a character, build a small world, and run a few short sessions before deciding.

$5of usage on the house

Unlimited worlds, campaigns, parties, sessions
All three agents (Copilot, Player, GM)
Image & music forging — share with your party
Cinema mode for the room
$5 lifetime credit pool

Begin a new tale

Most chosen

Tier II

Pay-as-you-go

When your starter credits run out and you want to keep playing. You pay monthly for exactly what you used — no more, no less.

$0base · billed for actual usage

Everything in Starter
5¢ per agent turn
20¢ per forged image
20¢ per music track
Billed monthly via Stripe
Cancel anytime — no refund games

Begin · upgrade later

Tier III

By invitation

For press, contests, demos, and the very occasional ambassador. Usage is tracked but never billed. There is no self-serve path here — by design.

Compedby invitation only

Everything in Pay-as-you-go
Zero charges
Same per-call tracking
Manually granted by the homebrewtales team

Ask politely

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What things cost

Three meters, one credit pool

Every billable action draws from the same balance. The Starter tier hands you 500 credits ($5); the Pay-as-you-go tier draws straight from your monthly invoice.

Agent turn

Copilot, Player Companion, or GM Companion — one user message, one reply, with full memory of your campaign.

5¢

Forged image

Portrait, scene, map, item, cover. Auto-attached to the world / campaign / character you chose; lands in the session gallery for everyone.

20¢

Music track

Session ambience or a one-shot theme. Composed in a sandbox, 90–180 seconds end to end, durable across reloads.

20¢

Failed runs cost nothing. A model error, a sandbox crash, a network blip mid-stream — none of those bill. We track only on success.

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Mechanics

Per player, never per table

Each player pays for what they ask

The gamemaster never picks up the bill for the table. Every player at the session has their own meter; usage is private to them. If two players ask their companion the same question, each pays a nickel.

No webhooks, no surprises

Billing is real-time and visible from your billing page — current plan, credits remaining, every meter's count this period. Powered by Stripe under the hood; Autumn keeps the two in sync.

Hard stop on Starter

When the $5 of starter credit is spent, the next agent / forge call returns a polite 402 and a one-click upgrade button. No quiet overage, no I-didn't-know-it-was-charging.

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In the margins

Frequently scribbled

Do I need a credit card to sign up?

No. The Starter tier gives you $5 of credit immediately. You only attach a card if you upgrade to Pay-as-you-go.

What does a typical session cost?

Hard to predict — depends on how chatty your players are. As a rough yardstick, a 2-hour session for a party of four players is usually under $1 per player if you’re generous with the companion and ask it to forge a scene or two. Most of the actual cost is the agents, not the images.

Are unspent credits refundable?

Starter credit isn’t refundable because we never charged you for it. For Pay-as-you-go you only pay for what you used, so there’s nothing to refund at month-end either.

Can I get an invoice / receipt?

Yes — when you upgrade, every monthly bill produces a Stripe invoice you can download from your billing page.

What happens if Autumn or Stripe goes down?

Billing “fails open” — the platform keeps working. You never lose a session because a payment provider had a bad five minutes. We reconcile usage on the next successful call.

How do I get a Sponsored plan?

You don’t self-serve into Sponsored. We comp accounts by hand — typically for press, contests, accessibility cases, or people running paid TTRPG events on top of Homebrew Tales. Send a note to hello@homebrewtales.com with the story.

Can I run my own model / bring my own keys?

Not yet. The agents run on a single, vetted model so the gamemaster behaves consistently across tables. Bring-your-own-key is on the long list, not the short one.

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Light the candle.

Five dollars of credit, three agents, every world you can dream up.

Begin a new tale Back to the entry hall