Credits | My Agency Tester

Credits are the budget you use to find new leads through the built-in lead finder. In standalone Acquisity, one credit normally equals one verified lead delivered into your campaign.

This page covers when credits get used, why an import can deliver fewer leads than you asked for, and where to check or top up your balance.

When credits get used

Credits are spent when the platform finds verified leads for you:

Running AI Lead Search / Acquisity Lead Database to find contacts matching your criteria — normally 1 credit per verified lead delivered.

AI Lead Search does not hand you addresses from an old saved email list. Each time you import through the database, the platform finds and verifies the email live before the lead is added to your campaign. If the email cannot be found or verified, that person is not delivered.

In standalone Acquisity, leads already in your campaigns are filtered out before import. If Instantly is connected to Acquisity, duplicate leads may still appear in the preview and can consume credits before the final upload blocks them as duplicates.

When credits are NOT used

These things don't cost credits:

Uploading your own CSV of leads. If you already have a list, bring it. No credits touched.
Sending campaign emails to leads already in your workspace. Credits pay for lead acquisition, not the act of sending. Normal duplicate, blocklist, unsubscribe, and campaign-status rules still apply.
Editing, copying, or viewing leads you already have.
Creating campaigns, writing sequences, or sending emails. The sending itself is covered by your plan, not credits.

Why this matters: a lot of users explore different searches and filters before committing. Previewing results does not cost credits. Credits are used after you confirm an import and the platform finds verified leads. In Instantly-connected workspaces, a verified duplicate can still consume a credit even if the upload later blocks it from the campaign.

Why I ordered 7,000 leads and only got 1,700

This is one of the most common surprises, and it usually comes down to live email finding and verification.

When you request 7,000 leads matching "SaaS CFOs in the UK", the platform starts from matching people and companies, then finds and verifies their current email addresses live. Some matched people will not make it through: their email may no longer exist, they may have moved company, the address may be unreachable, or the system may not be able to find a verified email at all.

Those people are filtered out before they reach your campaign. You only receive the leads with verified emails.

Things that shrink the pool

Very tight location filters — "CFOs at SaaS companies in Manchester with 51 to 100 employees" matches way fewer people than "CFOs at SaaS companies in the UK."
Live email lookup misses — the platform found a likely person, but could not find a current verified email for them.
People changing roles or companies — a profile can match your search, but the old work email is invalid because the person moved on.
Verification failures — the email cannot be verified safely enough to add to the campaign.
Ownership rules — leads already in another non-archived campaign in your workspace can be filtered out to stop accidental duplicate outreach.
Instantly-connected duplicate timing — if Instantly is connected, duplicates may be blocked during campaign upload rather than removed from preview counts.
Blocklist and provider safety rules — blocked, unsubscribed, risky, or otherwise ineligible contacts can be skipped to protect deliverability.

What to do about it

Use the preview as a guide, not a guarantee. Preview counts show the shape of the matching market. Final delivery depends on live email finding and verification.
Widen filters if the market is too narrow. Start broad (country, role level, industry), then narrow down. Wider pools give the system more chances to find verified emails.
Accept fewer, better leads. A well-targeted 1,700 is almost always worth more than a loose 7,000.

Do credits renew?

Plan-included credits and one-time topups never reset and never expire. Whatever you haven't spent carries forward. Recurring credit packs are the exception: they refill back up to their full pack amount each month, and unused recurring-pack credits don't stack above that amount.

How it works

Credit packs. Bought through Buy More. In workspaces billed directly by Acquisity, the window separates One-Time Topups from Recurring Credits. One-time packs stay in your balance until you spend them; recurring packs refill back up to their full amount each month. In workspaces billed through a partner, the available pack types depend on how your partner has set up billing.
Your balance is one number. Credits from every source are combined in the app rather than tracked separately.

Next Billing Date isn't a credit reset date

The Next Billing Date on the Billing page is when your subscription renews. Your plan credits are not topped up on that date.

Where to see your credit balance

In Billing: open Settings → Billing → Credit Balances to see your lead credits.
In the Cold Email Agent settings: open Settings → Cold Email Agent in the left sidebar. You'll see Feature Credits for your lead-credit balance.
During a lead finder search: the Import X leads dialog shows a credit badge — you see the cost before you confirm.

Running low on credits

You'll see warnings in the lead finder when your balance is low. At that point you can:

Top up credits. Use the Top Up / Buy More option where it appears in Settings → Billing → Credit Balances, Feature Credits, or the lead-search confirmation dialog.
Lean on your own lists. If you have a CSV list sitting in your CRM, upload it — no credits needed. See Import leads.
Use eligible existing leads. Leads you already paid for can be reused when duplicate, blocklist, unsubscribe, and campaign-status rules allow it.

You'll know your credits are tracking correctly when…

The credit badge in the lead finder matches the remaining balance in Settings → Billing → Credit Balances and Settings → Cold Email Agent → Feature Credits.
After running a lead finder search that delivered 500 verified leads, your balance dropped by exactly 500.
CSV uploads do not change your credit balance at all.

If any of those don't line up, contact support with the campaign ID — the team can trace the charges.

If something's not right

My credits dropped but I never confirmed a lead import

Check your recent submissions — a long-running scrape may have completed after you closed the dialog and consumed credits for the verified leads it delivered. If a submission is marked as completed and you don't remember confirming it, contact support with the submission ID.

I uploaded a CSV and credits got used

Credits should not be used for a straight CSV upload. If your balance changes after an upload, contact support — they can check the submission and billing logs.

Can I get credits refunded if a lead bounces?

Credits are consumed when verified leads are delivered, not when they're successfully emailed. A small percentage of bounces is still possible because email systems change after verification. If you see an unusually high bounce rate (over 5%) on an AI Lead Search list, flag it to support — it may point to a data quality issue worth investigating.

Why did duplicate leads use credits with Instantly connected?

In standalone Acquisity, lead-search availability removes leads already in your campaigns before you import. With Instantly connected, the preview can still include duplicates. The platform may find and verify those leads, consume credits for them, and then block them when it tries to upload them to the campaign.

See why lead-search counts drop or duplicates can still cost credits.

Scraping leads with the AI lead finder — where credits are actually spent
Import leads from CSV — the no-credits alternative
Lead lifecycle — what happens after a lead is delivered
Billing — how credits fit into your overall bill
When do my credits reset?

On this page