Notion AI Credits Explained: Standard, Select and the Nov 2 Switch

What Notion announced on October 19

Notion’s October 19, 2026 release, titled “Agents, rebuilt to do more for less,” is mostly about agents. Notion Agent can now work on a single task for up to 24 hours instead of five minutes, it has its own computer and browser, and a “Review for me” mode uses a separate model to check whether an action is safe before the agent takes it.

The part that affects budgets is the pricing model. In his blog post, co-founder Akshay Kothari writes that all AI usage, including Notion Agent, Custom Agents and usage from outside AI tools, now runs through one credit system. Until now, only Custom Agents were metered, at $10 per 1,000 Notion credits, a rate that still appears on Notion’s pricing page.

The timeline, checked against Notion’s help center on October 23, 2026:

• October 19, 2026: new Business and Enterprise workspaces start on credits.
• November 2, 2026: existing workspaces switch, and admins receive an email. Enterprise customers whose contracts have not renewed get their credits set at renewal.
• December 1, 2026: AI Meeting Notes begins counting against the monthly Standard allowance.

The three credit pools

There are two personal allowances and one shared balance:

Standard and Select cannot be combined, converted into each other or moved between members. To answer the most common question directly: yes, Notion AI credits reset. Both personal pools refill at the start of each billing cycle, and anything unused is lost rather than carried over.

A few things do not cost credits today. Database Autofill does not reduce balances, Workers stay off the meter while in beta, and everyday reads and writes through Notion MCP or the Notion API are free apart from normal rate limits. Running an agent through a connected app or the API, however, does use Notion credits.

Notion’s help page reserves the right to change which features use credits, the included amounts and how usage is calculated. Something that is free now may be metered later.

How far do 1,500 Standard and 500 Select credits go?

Notion’s Auto help page lists estimated credits per task type. Dividing the monthly allowances by those estimates gives a rough sense of capacity. Notion stresses that real usage varies; even a small edit inside a long, complicated thread can cost more.

The takeaway is that the Standard pool is generous for anyone who leaves the model on Auto, which matches Notion’s own claim that most users are unlikely to run out. Select is where people will hit the wall: someone who reaches for the top model by habit can burn through 500 credits in a few dozen simple tasks, or a handful of complex ones.

Meetings deserve their own line. From December 1, an hour of AI Meeting Notes is estimated at about 10 Standard credits, so a member who records 20 hours of meetings a month sets aside roughly 200 credits and has about 1,300 left for everything else.

Why Auto is so much cheaper

Auto is a router rather than a Notion model. It sends quick edits and summaries to fast, inexpensive models and reserves stronger ones for research, code or building Custom Agents, switching up for a hard step in a multi-step task and back down afterward. In Notion’s testing, Auto’s average cost came out 87% below Opus 5.5, and the blog post says it matched Opus 5.5 and Astra on more than 20 common tasks at roughly 90% lower cost. These are Notion’s own evaluations, not independent benchmarks. One caveat for admins: Auto only uses models the workspace allows, and restricting too many makes it less efficient.

What happens when credits run out

• Out of Standard: Auto-powered features pause until the next reset.
• Out of Select: model picking and personal Custom Agents pause. If you still have Standard credits, switching Notion Agent back to Auto keeps you working.
• Out of both: you continue on the workspace’s shared Notion credits, but only if an admin has allowed it and the balance is there.

That overflow is controlled at Settings → Notion AI → Allow workspace to use Notion credits after AI limit is reached, and it is off by default. Members see their balances and reset date under Settings → Notion AI → Usage; admins see per-member consumption under Settings → Access & billing → Notion credits.

Who pays for a shared Custom Agent?

By default, a Custom Agent spends its owner’s Select credits, even when the whole team uses it. The person who built the team’s triage or reporting agent can therefore find their monthly 500 gone early. The fix is to move shared agents onto the workspace budget: in the agent’s Credits panel, choose Owner allowance → Request workspace credits and propose a monthly budget, which takes effect once an admin approves it. Owners can also cap spending per agent. According to the help center, Custom Agents created before November 2 keep drawing on shared workspace credits.

An admin checklist before November 2

1. Inventory your agents. List the Custom Agents the team relies on and who owns each one, then decide which should be workspace-funded.
2. Keep Auto as the default. Turning off many models weakens the router; Notion shows a warning when a change reduces its quality.
3. Decide on overflow. If you enable shared Notion credits after the limit, set a per-member Notion credit limit at the same time.
4. Budget for meetings. Teams that lean on AI Meeting Notes will see part of their Standard pool go there from December 1.
5. Set a simple norm. “Auto for everyday work, pick a model only when it matters” prevents most mid-month Select shortfalls.

The AI Command Center, which will show usage by member, feature and agent and add spending limits and alerts, is described only as “coming soon,” with no date.

ChatGPT plans, Free and Plus

Members with ChatGPT Plus, Pro or Go can connect that account and pick a specific GPT model in Notion Agent; that usage comes from the ChatGPT plan instead of Notion credits. Auto still uses Standard credits, a non-GPT model uses Select, and the connection does not work with Custom Agents. The October 19 release mentions personal users connecting ChatGPT, but the help article we checked on October 23 still limits the feature to Business and Enterprise workspaces, so treat the help article as the current rule.

On Free and Plus, Notion’s pricing page lists Notion AI only as a limited trial, and the new credit pools are documented for Business and Enterprise only. Notion’s startups page puts Business at $20 per member per month, billed annually. If you mainly use Notion for notes and projects, Plus is enough; if you plan to use Notion Agent and meeting notes every week, Business is the plan the credit system is built around.

Below is the related Notion package listed in our store; contents and terms are exactly as stated on its product page.

In the AI Store Plus shop

Notion Business – 3 MonthsIn stock$5.00 – $33.00Price range: $5.00 through $33.00