Credits pay for one thing only: announcements spoken by an AI voice in the cloud. Nothing else on AnyAirline costs a credit — not the flight, not the map, not the music, not the workshop.
A flight with the complete cabin programme in one language costs about 80 credits on AI Lite, or about 180 on the full AI voice.
| Plan | Credits each month | Flights on AI Lite | Flights on full AI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | — | unlimited, local voice | — |
| Starter | 600 | 7 | 3 |
| Plus | 1 500 | 18 | 8 |
| Pro | 2 800 | 35 | 15 |
| Commander | 5 000 | 62 | 28 |
| Captain | 9 000 | 112 | 50 |
The Free plan never runs out. It uses the voice built into the connector, which runs on your own computer, costs nothing and works offline — you just don't get the AI voices or the other languages.
Most flights cost far less than the full programme, because most people don't run every announcement. Measured across real flights: a flight with 6–10 announcements comes to about 40 credits, one with 11–20 to about 79.
Work out your own flight
Pick the voice, the languages and the announcements you actually run.
A flight, announcement by announcement
Here is a complete short-haul, priced per phase.
| Phase | Full AI | AI Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Boarding groups intro | 8 | 3 |
| Preboarding | 7 | 3 |
| Group calls (three groups) | 12 | 6 |
| All remaining passengers | 4 | 2 |
| Last call | 6 | 3 |
| Boarding completed | 1 | 1 |
| Boarding | 38 | 18 |
| Cabin welcome | 8 | 4 |
| Captain's welcome | 16 | 7 |
| Safety briefing | 49 | 20 |
| Pushback | 1 | 1 |
| Takeoff | 2 | 1 |
| Seatbelt sign | 4 | 2 |
| Departure | 80 | 35 |
| Cruise update | 11 | 5 |
| Meal service | 11 | 5 |
| Duty free | 9 | 4 |
| Lights dimmed | 6 | 3 |
| Cruise | 37 | 17 |
| Descent | 10 | 4 |
| Final approach | 1 | 1 |
| After landing | 10 | 4 |
| Farewell | 1 | 1 |
| Arrival | 22 | 10 |
| Whole flight, one language | 177 | 80 |
Two things stand out.
The safety briefing is the most expensive announcement on the aircraft — on its own it is about a quarter of the flight, because it is by far the longest text. Using a video or a recording instead of a generated voice removes that quarter outright.
The short calls are almost free. Pushback, takeoff, final approach, boarding completed and the farewell are one credit each. Turning those off saves nothing worth having.
What a credit is worth
A credit buys characters of speech, and the rate depends on which voice you picked.
| Voice | Characters per credit | Average announcement |
|---|---|---|
| AI Lite | 100 | about 4 credits |
| Full AI voice | 40 | about 8 credits |
An average announcement is around 340 characters — roughly twenty seconds of speech. So AI Lite is about two and a half times cheaper, which is the single easiest way to stretch a package. You can choose per announcement: the full AI voice for the welcome and the farewell, AI Lite for the rest.
Each language is generated separately. Announcing in two languages costs twice as much as one, so the fastest way to halve your consumption is to drop the second language rather than to fly less.
Experimental languages
The full AI voice speaks 32 languages natively. Another 44 are available through a heavier model, and those cost double per character.
The catch worth knowing: the model is chosen for the whole set of languages at once. Adding one experimental language to an otherwise native set switches everything to the heavier model, so every language on that flight costs double — not just the experimental one. The flight wizard warns you before you pick one.
AI Lite speaks 47 languages and never applies the doubling.
When a credit is actually deducted
At the moment an announcement is generated — not when you dispatch the flight, and not when it plays. Each announcement is charged on its own, at generation, before the audio is produced.
Three things follow from that, and they are all in your favour:
A replay is free. Generated audio is cached. If the same announcement is needed again — identical wording, language, voice and reading mode — it is served from the cache and nothing is charged. In practice most announcements contain your flight number, destination or gate, so they are new each flight; the safety briefing and similar fixed texts are the ones that come back for free.
A failure is refunded. If generation fails after the credits were taken, they are put back automatically. You do not have to ask.
Running out does not break your flight. If your balance will not cover an announcement, it is spoken by the local voice on your own computer instead, and the flight continues. You will see the announcement marked as having fallen back.
Writing and translating the text costs nothing. Only the speech is charged.
Where credits come from
| Source | What it is |
|---|---|
| Subscription | Your monthly allowance, granted at the start of each billing period and good for that period |
| Top-up | One-off purchase, €3 to €500, 130 credits per € — or 180 per € on Commander and Captain |
| Auto top-up | Optional: when the balance falls below a threshold you set, a top-up is bought automatically |
| SimMarket | Short-Haul (1 500) and Long-Haul (5 000) packages redeemed with a code |
| Virtual airline | Credits distributed to you by a VA you fly for |
| Creator and invite bonuses | Granted when you take part in those programmes |
Upgrading mid-cycle grants the difference between the plans straight away — you do not wait for the next billing period.
How long credits last
There are two kinds of credit on your account and they last for different lengths of time.
Credits that come with a tier last that month. Your subscription allowance arrives at the start of each billing period and is good until the end of it; what you don't use does not roll over. An annual subscription works the same way — it is credited month by month, and each month stands on its own. Tiers we grant ourselves, such as the creator programme, follow the same rule.
Credits you buy outright last 12 months. Top-ups, auto top-ups, the Short-Haul and Long-Haul packages from SimMarket and the X-Plane Store, and credits handed to you by a virtual airline all sit on your account for a year from the day they arrive.
Everything is spendable with or without an active subscription. A subscription that ends does not lock the credits you already own; they run to their own expiry date.
Whatever runs out soonest is spent first. Since a billing month is always sooner than a year, that means your subscription credits go before anything you bought: a top-up or a package waits for you instead of being quietly burned through while an allowance sits unused. It also means nothing is ever lost sitting behind credits that had longer to live.
VA credits can be restricted to one airline. If a virtual airline distributes credits tied to its own ICAO code, they only pay for flights operated under it. Your own credits cover everything else, and the restricted ones simply wait for a matching flight.
The monthly rule applies from 4 September 2026. A subscription period paid for before that date keeps the previous 12-month validity for the whole period it covers — including every month of an annual plan — and the new rule starts with your next payment. Credits already on your account keep the expiry dates they already have.
Which one you want
A subscription is the cheaper credit by some distance: between 150 and 300 credits per euro depending on the tier, against 130 for a top-up — 180 on Commander and Captain. It is cheaper because it is sized to a month of flying rather than stockpiled indefinitely.
So the thing worth getting right is the tier that matches how much you actually fly. The tables at the top of this page say how many flights each one covers. If you finish most months with a large unused balance, you are paying for a tier you don't need; if you are falling back to the local voice before the month is out, the next tier up is cheaper than making up the difference.
And if your flying is uneven — a busy fortnight, then nothing until spring — that is what a top-up is for. It costs more per credit and it keeps for a year, which is the trade you are making on purpose.
Spending less
unchanged one would have replayed for free.
- Use a safety video or recording instead of a generated briefing. It is the single biggest item.
- Use AI Lite for routine announcements — two and a half times more speech per credit.
- Drop the second language if you do not need it. It is a straight halving.
- Keep your wording stable. Rewriting the text of an announcement makes it a new generation; the