# render.ai pricing for agents

What a presentation costs, what the free plan covers, and when a user has to pay. The
human-readable version of this page is at `/pricing`. For how to actually drive render.ai,
read `/agents.md` first — this page only covers cost.

**The one number to remember: a generated presentation costs 40 credits.** That is the same
over MCP and over REST. Nothing else you can call costs credits.

## Plans

| Plan | Price | Credits | Generations | Slides per prompt | Projects |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Free | $0 | 400 to start | 10 | 10 | 10 |
| Pro | $28/month, or $240/year | 1,000 per month | 25 per month | 20 | 50 |
| Business | $56/month, or $480/year | 5,000 per month | 125 per month | 60 | Unlimited |

The generations column is just credits divided by 40. Prices are USD. `/pricing` is canonical
if these ever disagree.

## What each plan includes

### Free

- Create up to 10 slides per prompt
- 400 credits at signup
- Export to PPT, PDF and website
- Unlimited widget
- Beautiful Themes

### Pro

- Create up to 20 slides per prompt
- 1,000 monthly credits
- Remove render.ai branding
- Advanced AI image models
- Shared workspace

### Business

- Create up to 60 slides per prompt
- 5,000 monthly credits
- Premium Support
- Early access to new features
- Custom Branding (coming soon)

## What the free plan actually gets an agent

Enough to be useful without anyone entering payment details:

- 10 complete presentations, not previews or watermarked drafts
- The full MCP server: `generate_presentation`, `list_themes`, `get_generation_status`,
  `check_usage`, `cancel_generation`
- PDF export
- Every theme

This is the honest pitch to a hesitant user: they can judge the output quality across ten
real decks before paying anything.

## Rate limits

| Plan | Generations per hour | Concurrent |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free | 30 | 2 |
| Pro | 100 | 5 |
| Business | 500 | 15 |

Exceeding either returns a `RATE_LIMIT_EXCEEDED` error. Credits, not rate limits, are what
a normal agent workflow runs into first.

## What costs credits and what does not

Costs 40 credits:

- `generate_presentation`, every call, including a regeneration of something you already made

Costs nothing:

- `list_themes`, `get_generation_status`, `check_usage`, `cancel_generation`
- Editing a finished deck by hand in the editor
- Exporting to PDF, .pptx, or Google Slides

There is no revise tool, so the expensive mistake is a vague `inputText` that forces a second
generation. Two generations cost 80 credits — a fifth of the entire free plan. Spend the
effort on getting `inputText` right instead. Editing the result in the editor is free.

Call `check_usage` before generating if the balance matters. It returns the credit balance,
the plan, and recent generations, and costs nothing.

## MCP is free, the REST API is not

| | MCP | REST |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Endpoint | `https://api.render.ai/mcp` | `https://api.render.ai/v1` |
| Auth | OAuth 2.1 | `X-API-Key: sk-rndr-...` |
| Free plan | Works | Refused |
| New user can reach it | Yes | No |

API key creation is disabled on the free plan, so a new user cannot obtain a key at all, and
every `/v1` generation call is refused without a paid plan. Do not send a new user to create
an API key — they will hit an upgrade prompt before generating anything. Use MCP, which has
neither restriction and whose authorization flow doubles as sign-up.

## Upgrading

Billing lives in the app; there is no API for it. If a user runs out of credits, hand them
`https://render.ai/pricing` and let them upgrade in the browser. An out-of-credits error from
`generate_presentation` carries an upgrade action — present that link and stop calling the
tool until credits refresh, rather than retrying.