What happens to your access when you downgrade to Free
You can move from a paid plan back to Free at any time. The key thing to know: a downgrade to Free takes effect at the end of your current billing cycle, not instantly — so you keep what you paid for through the end of the period.
Timing of a downgrade
When you downgrade to Free in the billing Plans UI, the change is scheduled for the end of the current cycle. Until then, you remain on your paid plan with its monthly credit grant and storage allotment. This means you don't lose the credits you've already been granted for the current period the moment you click downgrade.
After the cycle ends
Once you're on Free:
- Your account no longer receives a monthly managed-inference credit grant (Free is 0 monthly credits).
- The Free managed-inference ceiling applies — $2/month (200 credits) — along with the tighter $0.20/month programmatic API sub-cap and 2 free premium (Meshy) 3D generations per month.
- Storage reverts to the Free allotment (~500 MB).
Keeping the full engine for free
Downgrading doesn't mean losing capability. The Free plan still runs the full orchestration engine and flows, and the build123d CAD path keeps its no-count-cap metering (a small flat rate per generation). To keep running without managed limits, add your own OpenRouter key — that makes your runs unmetered ($0 in the ledger) and exempts you from the managed inference ceilings.
Top-up credits stay
Any one-time top-up credits you bought never expire, so they carry over after a downgrade and remain spendable on managed inference.