Runway and BoldDesk Swap Flat AI Plans for Credits. Price Like This

Runway and BoldDesk are moving flat AI plans to credits within a month of each other. Runway stops legacy Unlimited plans on 30 November, moving monthly customers to a $95 Max plan with 9,500 credits, while BoldDesk replaced AI seats with credits from 1 November. Both changes point at the same conclusion: unmetered AI is a cost you cannot forecast, and a metered plan with a clear overflow path is easier to run and easier to sell.

TL;DR

• Runway ends legacy Unlimited plans on 30 November and moves monthly subscribers to Max at the same $95 with 9,500 credits.
• Explore Mode, the unlimited relaxed-rate generation mode, does not carry over, and Runway blames queuing for the change.
• BoldDesk replaced AI Copilot seats with 1,000 credits per seat from 1 November, and AI pauses at zero while manual work continues.
• Unlimited is a liability: it hides capacity cost, invites queueing and rewards your heaviest users at your expense.
• Price with credits, allow capped rollover, protect the non-AI workflow, and migrate customers at the same price with notice.

Disclosure: ZeroRaised publishes this analysis and is a launch site for bootstrapped products. Facts come from the linked sources as checked on 3 Nov 2026; ZeroRaised has no commercial relationship with the companies named.

Unlimited AI pricing is a flat subscription that does not meter generation, so the vendor absorbs the cost of every request beyond the average. Credit-based pricing meters each AI operation against a balance, which makes cost visible to the customer and bounded for the vendor.

What is changing at Runway?#

Runway rolled out Max on 1 June 2026 and has not offered Unlimited since. Eligible legacy Unlimited plans stay unchanged through 30 November 2026. On that date, monthly Unlimited subscribers move automatically to Max at the same $95 a month, or they can cancel. Annual subscribers get a choice in November: cancel for a refund of remaining months or accept a credits bonus to migrate (Runway Help Center).

Max includes 9,500 monthly credits, and a customer can roll over one month of unused credits. Unlimited offered 2,250 credits plus Explore Mode, which gave unlimited generations at a relaxed rate. Explore Mode is not part of Max. Runway describes the 9,500 credits as "4x" Unlimited's credits (Runway Help Center).

Runway's stated reason is queueing. It says Unlimited's relaxed speeds "often led to queuing", and it moved to "a clearer credit-based structure" to protect the fastest generation times (Runway Help Center). In Runway's telling, the relaxed unlimited tier was costing speed.

What is changing at BoldDesk?#

BoldDesk made the same move in support software. From 1 November 2026, AI Copilot is renamed AI Assist and seat-based licensing is replaced with credit-based usage, where all AI operations consume credits. Existing AI Copilot seats convert automatically (BoldDesk knowledge base).

The plan and price stay the same. Each AI Copilot seat held on 1 November becomes 1,000 AI Credits a month, with prorated credits for the rest of the current period, and credits are added every month, including on yearly plans. Access is no longer limited by seats; usage is limited only by credits (BoldDesk knowledge base).

The important line is what happens at zero: "If credits reach zero, AI features pause until more credits are added. Manual ticket handling and non-AI workflows keep working as normal" (BoldDesk knowledge base). BoldDesk shows usage alerts as the balance drops and offers Auto-Purchase or AI Credit Packs to avoid interruptions. The AI Agent consumes credits too.

Why do unlimited AI plans break?#

Three reasons, and only one is about cost.

Cost is the obvious one: every generation has a marginal price, so a flat plan hands the heaviest users a subsidy paid by the vendor. The second is capacity. Runway named queuing, which is what happens when demand is unmetered and supply is not. The third is trust. A vague fair-use clause lets a vendor slow a customer down without warning, which feels arbitrary; a credit balance is at least a number both sides can see.

There is also a pricing lesson hiding in the migration. Runway kept the $95 price and BoldDesk kept the plan price, while changing what the money buys. That is the tidy way to remove a benefit: hold the headline number, reshape the unit, and give a migration path. A price rise invites a cancellation conversation. A metering change invites a usage conversation.

How should you price an AI product instead?#

1. Sell credits, not infinity. Meter the operation that costs you money, and show the balance where the work happens.
2. Let credits roll over, with a cap. Runway allows one month of rollover. A cap keeps the liability finite; rollover keeps the customer from feeling punished for a quiet month.
3. Never block the core non-AI workflow. BoldDesk pauses AI features and lets manual ticket handling continue. Your product should degrade to its non-AI core, not to a lock screen.
4. Give a visible overflow path. Usage alerts plus Auto-Purchase or credit packs turn a hard stop into a choice.
5. Migrate at the same price, with notice. Both vendors converted customers rather than repricing them, and Runway gave a dated cutover with an annual refund option.
6. Write the reason down. "Queuing" is a better explanation than "fair use".

If you are still deciding between seats and usage, the guide to pricing an AI product covers packaging, the credits explainer covers the unit, and the usage limits guide covers the hard stops. The Claude and OpenAI plan changes show the same pattern at the frontier.

What this means for bootstrapped founders#

For a solo founder, unlimited is not generosity; it is an unpriced short position. One power user can turn a profitable month into a loss, and you will not see it until the bill arrives. Metering is not anti-customer. It is the only way to keep a low entry price for the quiet majority without funding the loud minority yourself.

Start by measuring cost per operation in your own logs, then set a credit allowance that covers a normal month with room to spare. Put the balance in the interface. Say what happens at zero before a customer finds out the hard way. Then watch the distribution: if a small share of accounts consumes most of the credits, you have found your pricing problem before it finds you.

The Larridin analysis in this batch makes the other half of the argument: if you cannot show cost per outcome, buyers fall back on seat counts, and seat counts flatter products that are not working.

Related reading from this week: What Are LLM Tokens? How They Drive Your AI Costs.

Where ZeroRaised fits#

ZeroRaised is a launch and discovery site for products built without institutional venture capital or accelerator equity. If you sell an AI product, submit it here and put your pricing unit and limit on the page, because a clear ceiling is easier to trust than a vague promise. The newsletter carries new analysis like this. We make no promise of traffic or results.

Sources#

• Runway Help Center: Unlimited plan is switching to Max
• BoldDesk: AI Assist and AI Agent credit-based usage