How Credits Work
Credits are the currency that powers Penmate’s AI assessment. Here’s everything you need to know about how they work.
One Credit, One Analysis
Each time a student submits their work and the AI evaluates it, one credit is deducted from your organization’s balance. This includes:
- The four-criterion assessment (Content, Communicative Achievement, Organisation, Language)
- Strengths and areas for improvement
- Overall score calculation
- WIRE analysis (if enabled for the task)
Shared Balance
Credits belong to your organization, not to individual teachers. If your school has multiple teachers using Penmate, they all draw from the same credit pool. This makes it easy to manage a single budget for the whole team.
What this means in practice
- When Teacher A’s student submits work, one credit is deducted from the shared pool — not from Teacher A’s personal balance.
- Teacher B’s students draw from the same pool simultaneously.
- There is no per-teacher credit limit or allocation — all teachers share equally from the total balance.
- All teachers in the organization can see the current credit balance in the dashboard.
Who can purchase credits?
Only the organization admin (the account that created the organization) can submit a credit purchase request. If you need more credits and are not the admin, contact your organization admin.
Checking Your Balance
Your current credit balance is displayed in the dashboard. You can see:
- How many credits remain
- How many credits have been used
When Credits Run Out
If your organization runs out of credits:
- Students can still submit their work
- Evaluations will be queued until credits are available
- Purchase a new credit package to resume evaluations
Frequently Asked Questions
Do all teachers in my organization share the same credits? Yes. Credits are pooled at the organization level. Every AI analysis deducts from the shared balance regardless of which teacher created the task.
Can I see how many credits each teacher has used? Not currently. The dashboard shows the total credits used and remaining for the whole organization, but does not break down usage by individual teacher.
What if one teacher uses all the credits? Credits are first-come, first-served — there is no per-teacher cap. If your organization has many teachers, consider purchasing a larger credit package to ensure everyone has enough for their classes.
Are trial credits also shared? Yes. Trial credits work the same way as purchased credits — they belong to the organization and are shared across all teachers.