Glossary
What Is Credits?
In Verifycate, a credit is the unit used to pay for issuing: putting one certificate into one person's hands costs one credit, whether that's a single issue or a batch of a thousand.
Also called: credit balance, issuing credits
What it's for
Issuing has a real cost somewhere, and every tool hides it differently — per-seat pricing that punishes small teams, enterprise quotes that need a sales call, or "free" plans that watermark every certificate. A credit is the honest version: one certificate into one person's hands costs one credit. Nothing else is metered.
The virtue isn't the accounting; it's what it predicts. A workshop with 180 attendees needs 180 credits. Budgeting stops being a negotiation and becomes multiplication.
How it works
One credit, one issued certificate. That's the whole pricing model, and it's strict about it:
- Spends credits: issuing — directly, in a batch, or by accepting a unlock response or a request. Reissuing a recipient onto the newest design spends a credit too, because it puts a new certificate in their hands. Making a certificate blockchain-verifiable adds one extra credit on top of the issue.
- Doesn't spend credits: designing templates, building forms, editing recipients, correcting an issued certificate, verification pages, hosting, API access setup. A certificate that's designed, drafted and queued costs nothing until it's actually issued.
Credits come with a subscription — each Pro plan includes a monthly allowance — or as one-off top-up packs. Either way, credits never expire: unused credits stay on your balance and roll over, whoever bought them. The balance is visible on the dashboard, and confirming a bulk issue shows the count before it commits.
Because the meter runs per certificate rather than per seat, the economics favour the people who actually do this work: one admin can issue for an entire organisation, and inviting a colleague costs nothing. Verification is deliberately outside the meter entirely — a recipient checking their certificate ten years later spends nothing, which is the only design that makes verification worth trusting.
Everything on this page runs in Verifycate. The first 300 certificates are free, no card. Start for free
Common questions
- What exactly costs one credit?
- One issued certificate. A batch of 400 costs 400. Reissuing a recipient onto a newer template costs one, since it re-issues their certificate. A blockchain-verifiable certificate costs two — one for the issue and one for the anchor. Designing, drafting and corrections are free.
- Do credits expire?
- No. Credits never expire and unused credits roll over — whether they came with a subscription or a one-off top-up pack. They stay on your balance until you use them.
- What happens if I run out mid-batch?
- Issuing stops rather than half-finishes — recipients stay pending until you add credits or upgrade, then go out. Nothing is charged twice.
- Do I pay when someone verifies or views a certificate?
- No. Verification pages, downloads and the recipient portal are free forever, for you and for every recipient — the meter only reads at issue time.
Related terms
- Certificate RecipientIn Verifycate, a certificate recipient is one person on a certificate's list — the record carrying their name, contact details, attribute values and status from import through issue to verification.
- Bulk Certificate GenerationBulk certificate generation produces one personalised certificate per person from a single design and a list of recipients, instead of editing a file once per name.
- Branded PortalIn Verifycate, the branded portal is the recipient-facing home for an organisation's certificates and forms, dressed in the organisation's own colours, name and domain instead of Verifycate's.
One certificate, one credit. Your first 300 are free.
No per-seat pricing, no meter on verification or design — issuing is the only thing that costs, and the first 300 are on us. No card.
“We issued 2,000+ certificates for InCTF — winners, participants, the lot.” — Aravind BL, Amrita InCTF
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