What it does
Always-visible credit usage panel in the left sidebar. Shows:
- Free apps created (e.g., 5/10) with progress bar.
- Agent credits used (e.g., 0%) with progress bar.
- Cloud credits used (e.g., 0%) with progress bar.
- Large primary button: + Upgrade to Replit Core.
Evidence
- Replit - Workspace Home — Starter plan widget at the bottom of the left rail.
Strategic choice
Keeping the usage widget persistently visible is a deliberate anti-pattern to the usual "hide the cost until billing day" approach. Replit is betting that:
- Transparency builds trust — users know what they've used and can't be surprised.
- Visible scarcity drives conversion — watching a bar fill up naturally prompts upgrade.
- Credit-as-quota mental model — users think of free tier as "up to X", not "unlimited until we ban you."
This is the opposite of Anything.com - Workspace and New Project, which shows only a Try MAX promo + no ongoing consumption meter. Anything.com has a "Get Free Credits" CTA which is acquisition-oriented; Replit's is engagement-oriented.
Three types of metering
- Free Apps — absolute count, limit on how many concurrent apps you can have.
- Agent credits — consumption-based, for agent invocations.
- Cloud credits — consumption-based, for compute/hosting.
Three separate meters = three distinct quotas = three separate reasons to upgrade. Each maps to a different activity pattern.
Differentiators vs Anything.com
- Anything.com uses "credits" as a pricing mechanism (see Anything.com - Pricing) but doesn't surface consumption persistently in the UI.
Sources
- !raw/replit/Project_View.png