Sudowrite Pricing and Credits Explained: What the Page Says and What It Doesn't

Sudowrite's pricing page lists two different credit figures for its Professional plan, 1,000,000 and 450,000, and does not say which applies or what the other means. Sudowrite's help docs and blog both use 1,000,000 and give billing intervals the pricing page leaves out, so the higher figure is better supported, but treat every figure below as unconfirmed until you see it at checkout.

The conflict in the Professional plan

The Sudowrite pricing page shows "1,000,000" and "450,000" in the Professional plan block, both before "credits per month", on 2026-11-08. It gives no explanation of either.

Here is what Sudowrite lists for each plan. The monthly-billing prices come from its plans help page, because the pricing page text shows one price per plan beside a Monthly/Yearly toggle marked "Up to 50% off".

Three things point to 1,000,000, and none of them explains 450,000. The help docs list it. Sudowrite's cost-of-a-novel post, last updated October 19, 2026, uses it. And the Max card on the pricing page carries a "2x as much!" badge, which would fit 2,000,000 against 1,000,000 and not against 450,000, but the page does not say what it refers to. In the page's HTML the 450,000 sits next to a slanted colored shape that might be a strike-through when displayed, but we cannot tell from the text how it renders. A reader looking at the live page may see at once what we cannot.

What a year costs (our arithmetic, an estimate)

These sums use the prices in the table, assume they do not change, and exclude any tax.

From the docs prices, the annual saving works out to about 47% on Hobby & Student, 24% on Professional and 25% on Max, all inside the pricing page's "Up to 50% off". Annual billing also commits you for the year, and the docs say only monthly plans can pause, for up to three months.

Credits per dollar, with both figures (our arithmetic, an estimate)

At 1,000,000, Professional matches Max's rate on annual billing, while 450,000 would make it worse than Hobby's. That pattern is consistent with one figure being current and the other being left over from an older plan, or with some other explanation the page does not give. Do not use either as a settled input for a cost calculator.

What a credit actually buys

A credit does not map to a word. Sudowrite's credits page says use depends on the words read, the words written and the AI model. Its feature page says there is no reliable way to predict how many credits features will use. Its own illustration shows how wide the spread is: asking the Write button for 200 words with identical context cost over 8,000 credits on Claude 4.1 Opus, against about 70 on GPT-5 Nano, so in that example the choice of model moved the bill by more than 100 times.

Other documented points that change the sums:

• Free by default: Quick Edit and Chat use no credits unless you switch on their High Quality mode.
• Time a drafting sprint to your refresh date: on Hobby and Professional, Sudowrite's rollover page says anything unspent is lost when the month's allowance renews, and that renewal follows the moment you signed up. Its example is a February 5 signup at 2:02pm ET renewing on the 5th of each month at that time. Starting a heavy month just after renewal keeps the whole allowance in play.
• Max lets a balance build, within a limit: it is the only plan that carries unused credits forward. The same page caps that at 12 months from when each credit was issued and requires the subscription to stay active. That helps someone who writes in bursts. A writer who spends the full allowance every month gets nothing from it.
• Treat bought credits as a reserve: Sudowrite's extra-credits page says one-time purchases have no expiry and survive a pause or cancellation, so buying early loses nothing to time. They still need an active plan to spend, and the monthly allowance is used before them, so a purchase sits untouched until that allowance runs out. We did not see a price.
• Tracking: a Recent Activity log in Settings lists recent features and the credits each used.

Scenarios: how far each figure goes

These scenarios are our arithmetic on Sudowrite's own published estimates, shown for both Professional figures. They are estimates, and none is a measurement.

Scenario 1: Sudowrite's words-per-plan range

The credits page says 1 million Professional credits "might allow" 50,000 to 500,000 AI words a month. That is 2 to 20 credits a word. Applying the same range to every figure:

Scenario 2: an 80,000-word draft, by model

Sudowrite's blog estimates credits per 1,000 words by model. We divide its total by each Professional figure, round up to whole months because credits expire, and multiply by the $29 monthly-billing price.

The conflict matters most in the middle rows. At 1,000,000, a Muse draft of 960,000 credits fits in a month with 4% to spare. At 450,000, it takes three months and costs three times as much. On annual billing the cash outlay is the $264 yearly figure whichever row applies.

Scenario 3: the same draft, generated twice

Few people keep every first output. If you assume each word is generated twice, which is our assumption and not a measured rate, Muse needs 1,920,000 credits. That is 2 months at 1,000,000 or 5 months at 450,000.

These scenarios count only the words generated once or twice. They leave out rewrites, brainstorming and Story Bible generation, and Sudowrite's docs warn that context length moves the number. The blog's table names specific model versions, so check which models your plan offers now.

Measure your own rate instead

The only number that matters is your own. Run one real chapter and open Recent Activity.

1. Add up the credits the chapter used.
2. Divide by the words you kept, to get credits per kept word.
3. Multiply by your book's length.
4. Divide by the credit figure on your account.

An invented example, for the method only: a 2,400-word chapter uses 30,000 credits. That is 12.5 credits a word, so 80,000 words needs 1,000,000 credits. That is one month on the higher figure and three on the lower.

Which plan the documentation points to

The blog post says every feature is available on both Hobby and Professional and that credit volume is the only difference, which conflicts with the docs on Feedback. Go by the pricing page and the docs.

What the page does and does not state

Stated on the pricing page on 2026-11-08: Hobby & Student includes writing, rewriting, describing and expanding tools, style matching, series continuity, and an AI chat for fiction. Professional adds developmental edits, line edits and beta reads. Max adds a 12-month rollover of unused credits. Each plan has a "Start Free Trial" button with the note "No credit card, cancel anytime."

Not stated on the pricing page: the length of the trial, what a credit buys, which features cost more credits, a yearly price, and what happens when credits run out. The docs fill in some of this, as above. The trial page describes a refund if you ask within the first 7 days, and a banner on the blog offers 10,000 free credits, but neither gives a trial length. The pricing page also does not document export formats. The Sudowrite docs do, and our Sudowrite review covers them.

If you cancel, the docs say your documents stay viewable and exportable, but AI features need an active plan.

What to check before you pay

Because no credit-burn log exists and the page conflicts with itself, do these in order.

1. Reload the pricing page and see whether the Professional block still shows two figures.
2. Start the free trial, which asks for no card per the page, and open the account or usage screen to see your actual credit balance.
3. Run one chapter on the model you intend to use and work out your rate as above.
4. At checkout, confirm the price shown, the billing interval, and the credit figure for your plan before you enter payment details.
5. Ask Sudowrite support in writing which Professional figure applies and whether credits are per month on a yearly plan. Keep the reply.
6. Check what the trial includes, since the page does not say.

If credits per month matter to your decision, choose the plan whose figure you have seen on your own account, not the one on a comparison page. Credit-based tools differ in how they meter use, so compare using the same method across tools, as in Squibler vs Sudowrite, or look at Novelcrafter, where AI use is billed by the vendor whose key you connect.

Is Sudowrite the right buy at all

Sudowrite is a poor fit if you want predictable monthly spend, since Sudowrite itself says credit use cannot be predicted, or if you want to choose your own AI vendor. For a ranking against other options see best AI for fiction writers. If you want to try the plans, go to Sudowrite.

More tools and guides are in the AI drafting tools hub.

Last verified 2026-11-08. Rules and prices change: check the linked primary page before you rely on this.