How to save credits

I did a search and didnt see anything.

I just deployed the chat bot on my site and I see between 1-3 credits everytime someone clicks to chat, even if they never enter a question. What is the best way to avoid this and not have any LLM calls without a user input?

CCraig I did a search and didnt see anything. I just deployed the chat bot on my site...

Tico | Voiceflow Assistant•9/26/25, 5:44 PM

Here’s why you’re seeing a few credits disappear as soon as someone opens the web-chat, and how to stop it:

What’s happening
• When the widget opens your flow usually runs the first step.
• If that first step involves an LLM (Agent step, Prompt step, or any other AI-generated message) Voiceflow has to call the model → those tokens are billed immediately.
• The docs call this out: “While sending a message is free, any message generated using an LLM … includes auto-start messages and will incur usage-based charges.”
(Credits doc → “Which actions consume credits?”)

That’s why you’ll see ~0-3 credits even if the visitor never types – an LLM crafted the welcome greeting.

How to avoid any charge until the user actually sends a message

Start with a purely static Message step (or no step at all).
• Message, Card, Carousel, Buttons, API/Function calls, logic, etc. are free.
Place your first Agent / Prompt step after a Listen or Capture so it only runs once the user’s first message arrives.
Simple pattern:
Double-check that your greeting Message is not set to “Use AI to rewrite” or similar, and that no hidden Prompt step is feeding the text.
Re-publish and test – opening the chat should now show 0 credits until the visitor’s first reply (which will then be 1 credit for the user message + any LLM usage your flow triggers).

That’s all you need – keep the LLM off until the user speaks, and no credits are spent beforehand.

Docs for reference: https://docs.voiceflow.com/docs/credits

Voiceflow

Credits

Credits are Voiceflow's currency used to bill for Agent hosting and AI services.