Knowledge

Whose stars a teammate's question uses

You share a workspace with other people, and someone asks the assistant a question there. Whose stars pay for the answer? One workspace setting, Credit Usage, decides. It has two values.

• Owner Credit. The workspace owner pays for every answer anyone in the workspace asks for. The owner's plan also decides which models and plan features members get there.
• Individual Credit. Each person pays for their own answers, and each person's own plan decides what they can use.

Every new workspace starts on Owner Credit. If you own a workspace and invite people without touching this setting, their answers come out of your stars.

Where the setting lives

Click the workspace name at the top of the sidebar and choose Settings. In the Workspace Settings dialog, Credit Usage is the first row under the Settings heading. The highlighted half shows the current value.

Any member can open this dialog to check. The chat screen never shows the value. An invitation link shows a small Owner Credit or Individual Credit tag before you join, but invitations accepted inside Lexika don't, so check Workspace Settings after you join.

Only the owner can change the value. A click on the other half saves at once, with no confirmation, and Workspace credit policy changed successfully appears. If you're an admin, the switch looks active, but Lexika refuses your change and keeps the old value. The error says the workspace wasn't found. It only means the owner has to make this change. Members without the admin role see the switch dimmed.

What the owner's stars cover

Under Owner Credit, the owner's stars pay for everything a member's answer costs:

• the answer itself, whether the member picked a model or chose Eco, Balanced or Premium, plus the separate charge for making that choice
• web searches the assistant runs while answering
• pictures the assistant creates in the answer

Under Individual Credit, those costs go to whoever asked.

Mini Apps ignore this setting. A Council or Agentic Research run always spends the stars of the person who starts it.

Whose plan applies

Under Owner Credit, a member also works with the owner's plan and the owner's balance. That decides:

• which models you can pick, and which of them the owner's stars can cover right now
• which models Eco, Balanced and Premium may choose from
• whether the message box offers Chatting mode. Its switch reads Asking AI until you flip it, and appears only once a conversation has started.
• how many Brains the workspace can hold, and how many entries each Brain can take

So the same model can be open to you in one workspace and locked in another. The member limit is the exception. The owner's plan always sets how many people the workspace can have.

When the owner's plan falls short

In an Owner Credit workspace you don't own, pick a model the owner's plan lacks and a strip appears above the message box. It reads This workspace's plan doesn't cover with the model's name, then Ask the workspace owner to upgrade. You can't send with that model. The same strip appears when the plan includes the model but the owner is short of stars.

Pick another model, or ask the owner to upgrade, add stars, or switch to Individual Credit, where your own plan and stars apply.

In that workspace, the Not in your plan lock and the amber badge that says how many stars a model needs describe the owner's plan and balance. Upgrading your own plan won't unlock those models.

Your own plan still counts

Before anything goes out, Lexika checks your own plan, in every workspace. If you have a free account, a card that reads Sending starts with a plan. appears and your message stays in the box, even where the owner would pay. Messages in Chatting mode are stopped too. To send, you need a paid plan of your own.

Reading the balance and the bill

The star ring at the bottom of the sidebar, beside your name, always shows your own stars. In an Owner Credit workspace you don't own, it doesn't move when you send. That isn't free usage. The owner's ring moves instead.

If you're the owner, click the star ring and choose View usage details. It opens Usage in your own Settings, not in Workspace Settings. Its rows name the model or other item paid for, never the member who asked, so you can't split the bill by person there.

When the setting changes

The new value applies from the next message. Whoever was paying when an answer started still pays for that answer.

Model lists update at once for everyone in the workspace who has Lexika open. Chatting mode and the Brain limits can take a few minutes to catch up, even after a reload.

Allowed models

The row below, Allowed models, narrows the choice for everyone, owner included. Manage models opens the list. Select the models you want, then click Update, and Workspace updated successfully appears. With nothing selected, the list reads All models are allowed. To return to every model, click Allow all, then Update. Closing the list without Update keeps the old one.

Only the owner's changes save here too, and an admin gets the same error. Members without the admin role see Manage models dimmed.

Once the list is set, the model selector at the top of a chat shows only those models, and Eco, Balanced and Premium choose only among them. If the model you already had selected isn't on the list, for example one you picked in another workspace, a strip above the message box shows its name followed by isn't allowed in this workspace. Pick one of its allowed models.

The list never adds a model that the plan paying for the workspace lacks. It also doesn't stop the assistant from creating pictures during an answer, charged as Credit Usage says.

Choosing a value

• Owner Credit fits a team you cover on one plan. Every member's answers draw on your stars, so open Usage now and then. To keep members off pricier models, narrow Allowed models, which limits you as well.
• Individual Credit fits members with their own plans. Each of them needs a plan that includes the models they want.
• Teammates on a free account can't send under either value. Each needs a paid plan of their own.