You will need the Write AI Assistant permission to send messages to the AI Assistant, or Read AI Assistant to open and run saved AI reports, along with Reporting. Changing your subscription, including the overage setting, needs Full Account, plus no campus or organization limit when your account has more than one organization. Changing who can use the AI Assistant needs Permissions Limited.
The AI Assistant in the Query Builder comes with a monthly allowance of messages that your whole church shares, an optional overage setting for churches that want to keep going past the allowance, and two permissions that control who can use it. This article explains how each one works and answers the questions administrators ask most.
Your monthly message allowance
Every church on the Core Plus plan gets 50 AI messages per billing period. The allowance belongs to the account, not to individual users, so every staff member with the Write AI Assistant permission draws from the same 50.
What counts as a message. Only messages you send in the chat count. Each send that the assistant finishes uses exactly one message, whether it produced a report, answered a question, or replied that the data is not available. The assistant's own work behind the scenes never multiplies the count, and failures on our side (for example, "The AI service is busy") are not counted.
What is always free. Running, refreshing, exporting, or scheduling a saved AI report, and showing one on a dashboard, never uses a message.
When it resets. The allowance resets on your church's billing day each month. The AI messages used this month meter below the text box shows how many have been used and when the count resets. If your church goes past the allowance with overage turned on, the meter turns red and shows how many messages are over.
When you reach the limit
With overage turned off (the default for every church), the text box and the Try asking prompts are disabled once the allowance is used up. A warning above the text box gives the reset date and points an administrator to the Billing settings. Everything else keeps working: saved reports run, dashboard widgets refresh, and schedules send.
If your subscription is set to cancel at the end of the period, overage is never charged even when the setting is on. The warning asks you to re-enable auto-renew to continue.
Turning on overage billing
Overage lets your church keep sending messages after the allowance is used. Each message beyond the allowance is billed at $0.40.
Go to Settings & Tools (Cog icon in the tool-bar) > Your Organization > Account Settings. It opens on the Billing tab.
On the Billing tab, select the pencil icon next to Subscription. The Edit Subscription window opens.
Below Auto Upgrade?, turn on Allow AI Overage?. This switch appears only when the selected plan is Core Plus (or a legacy Premium plan). Hover over the information icon to see the price and a reminder that users are blocked at the limit when the switch is off.
Select Save. The Billing tab now shows AI Message Overage: Enabled, and the text box unlocks the next time the Query Builder page loads.
How overage is charged. Overage messages add up during the period and are charged to the card on file overnight when one of these happens:
Your allowance resets on the billing day (the previous period's overage is charged that night).
The unbilled amount is over $10 on a Sunday, so heavy users are billed weekly.
Your subscription is set to cancel, your plan changes to one without the AI Assistant, or your account is cancelled. Any unbilled amount is charged right away.
Each charge covers every unbilled message, so nothing is billed twice. On your statement it appears as "AI Assistant Message Overage: $0.40 x N."
Tip: It is normal to see an overage charge shortly after your counter resets. The counter resets on your billing day, and any overage from the period that just ended is charged that same night.
Core Plus free trials
A Core Plus free trial includes the AI Assistant with a few limits. The AI Assistant button shows an open lock with the note "Included in your trial," and a notice at the top of the panel lists the limits:
The trial includes 20 messages instead of the paid plan's 50 per month.
Overage is not available during a trial. At the limit, the text box is disabled with a message that points to the paid plan.
Reports can be built, run, and exported but not saved. Save and Save as... are hidden.
When the trial converts to Core Plus, the allowance becomes 50 for the current period right away and saving turns on. Reports built during the trial do not carry over, so describe them again after upgrading.
Which plans include the AI Assistant
Only the Core Plus plan (and legacy Premium plans) include the AI Assistant. On any other plan, the AI Assistant button in the Query Builder shows a padlock with the note "Not available on current plan," and selecting it opens a panel that reads "Available on Core Plus only." Users with the Full Account permission see an Upgrade Now button that opens Edit Subscription. Saved AI reports stay available on every plan and keep running; see How do I save and use an AI report?
Controlling who can use the AI Assistant
Two permissions live under Reporting > Queries in the role and user permission lists. Both require the Reporting permission as well:
Read AI Assistant - can open AI reports in the assistant and run them, but cannot start or refine conversations.
Write AI Assistant - can create and refine AI reports with the assistant. These messages count against the monthly allowance. Write includes Read.
Super users have both. When the assistant was released, everyone who already had Reporting (and every role that includes it) received both permissions, so nothing needed to be set up. To stop someone from spending messages, remove Write AI Assistant and leave Read AI Assistant so they can still open and run saved reports. Users with neither permission do not see the Query Editor / AI Assistant switch at all.
Both permissions are account-wide. They cannot be narrowed by campus, and a campus override cannot take them away. What the assistant can see is still narrowed: it reads with each person's own access, including their campus and organization limits, and the campus selector narrows every area it reads. The permission is account-wide, but the data is not. Even a Super User sees less while their campus selector is narrowed.
To change the permissions on a role:
Open Settings & Tools > Your Organization > Security and select the Roles tab.
Select the role's name to open it, then select the Permissions tab.
Expand the Reporting section. Under Queries, check or uncheck Read AI Assistant and Write AI Assistant. Because they are account-wide, they do not appear when you set a campus override.
Select Save.
The same two checkboxes appear when you edit an individual user's permissions. For the full walkthrough of roles and user permissions, see How do I set role-based permissions or role-based system access?
Tip: The Contributions data source also needs the Full Read Contributions permission, and the Groups data source needs Full Read Groups. Without them, that source does not appear in the assistant's Data Source dropdown. Both are campus-scoped, so the assistant reads giving and groups only at the campuses where you hold them.
With more than one campus or organization
A saved AI report is not a fixed snapshot. It runs again each time, as whoever is looking at it:
Opening a saved AI report - it reruns as the person opening it, so someone with narrower access sees fewer rows.
AI dashboard widgets - a widget runs the saved report in the viewer's own scope, so two people can open the same dashboard and see different numbers.
Scheduled AI reports - run as the schedule's owner, without the campus selector.
Drafts - only the author can run a draft AI report.
Once your church has more than one organization and giving is split by organization, an AI report that reads gifts, gift lines or pledges must show an Organization column and total by it. A saved AI report or draft that reads them without that column is refused wherever it runs: the report screen, exports, dashboard widgets, mail merge and schedules. The message reads "This report adds giving from more than one organization together. Open it in the AI Assistant and ask it to split the totals by organization." Picking one organization in the campus selector does not lift the refusal.
Tip: The usual case is a giving report saved before your second organization was added. Open it in the AI Assistant, ask it to split the totals by organization, and save it again. That request uses one message, like any other send.
What is an organization? explains organizations, and What is the campus selector? explains how the campus selector works.
Common questions
Send is greyed out and a warning says this month's messages are used. Your church has used its allowance and overage is off, or the subscription is set to cancel. Turn on Allow AI Overage? as described above, re-enable auto-renew, or wait for the reset date in the warning.
Two users see different numbers on the meter. The count is shared by the whole account, so they should match. One page is out of date; the meter refreshes after every send and when the page reloads.
Two users see different results from the same AI report or widget. Each person runs the report in their own scope. See With more than one campus or organization above.
We were charged for AI overage we did not expect. Check the Billing tab. AI Message Overage: Enabled means an administrator turned the setting on. The charge description shows the number of messages, and charges land on the billing day, on Sundays when the amount is over $10, and when a plan changes or cancels.
Can we buy more messages or change the price? The allowance and the overage price are the same for every church. The only setting you control is Allow AI Overage?.