Team token pools, also known as shared credit buckets, are a billing model where a team or organization subscribes to a single plan with a collective allowance of resources, such as API calls, AI tokens, or data storage. This approach allows any team member to draw from the shared pool, eliminating the need for rigid, individual usage quotas.

Instead of assigning each user a separate, fixed number of credits, the entire team shares a larger, more flexible bucket. This model is common in collaborative software and especially valuable for AI platforms where usage can be unpredictable and vary significantly between team members. It simplifies resource management for the customer and creates a more seamless user experience.

A shared credit system is typically built on a few core components that work together: a base subscription, a pooled resource, and a way to manage user access. This structure provides both predictability for the business and flexibility for the customer.

Here’s a breakdown of the key elements:

• Base plan fee: A recurring charge (e.g., monthly or annually) that grants access to the platform and establishes the shared pool of credits. This could be a flat fee for the entire team or a combination of a platform fee plus a per-seat cost.
• Shared credit pool: The central bucket of resources (e.g., 10 million AI tokens) that the entire team can use. The size of this pool is determined by the subscription tier.
• Seat-based access: Team members are added as “seats” to the plan. Each seat is a user account that is authorized to consume resources from the shared credit pool. Adding or removing seats is often how plans are upgraded or downgraded.
• Usage tracking: The system must accurately track the consumption of each user and deduct it from the team’s central balance in real time. This data is critical for billing, analytics, and notifying the team of their remaining credits.

For example, a SaaS company might offer a “Team Plan” for $199/month that includes 5 seats and a pool of 20 million AI tokens. An administrator can invite five team members, and all their combined usage is drawn from the 20 million token pool.

Adopting a pooled credit model offers significant advantages over individual quotas for both the business and its customers. It reduces friction, improves user experience, and aligns the pricing model with the value of collaborative work.

For customers, the benefits include:

• Increased flexibility: Power users aren’t bottlenecked by individual limits, while less frequent users don’t leave valuable credits unused.
• Reduced administrative overhead: Team leads don’t have to constantly manage and reallocate individual quotas.
• Cost efficiency: The team can often get a better per-unit price by committing to a larger, shared pool, preventing wasted spend from unused individual allowances.

For the business, this model leads to:

• Higher customer satisfaction: A seamless, collaborative experience can improve retention and reduce support requests related to quota management.
• Predictable revenue: The model is typically based on recurring subscription fees, making revenue forecasting more reliable.
• Clear upsell paths: As a team grows or its usage increases, the path to a higher-tier plan with more seats and a larger credit pool is clear and logical.

While powerful, building a shared allocation system introduces technical and logistical challenges that require careful planning. The primary difficulties lie in accurately tracking usage, managing subscription changes, and communicating clearly with users.

Key challenges include:

• Real-time usage tracking: Aggregating usage data from multiple users and reflecting it accurately in a central dashboard is complex. Delays or inaccuracies can lead to confusion and billing disputes.
• Proration and mid-cycle changes: When a team adds or removes a seat in the middle of a billing cycle, the system must correctly calculate prorated charges or credits for both the seat and any changes to the shared pool.
• Setting caps and overages: Deciding how to handle overages is a critical product decision. A hard cap stops service when credits run out, which prevents unexpected bills but can interrupt workflow. A soft cap allows users to continue, billing them for the overage, which offers flexibility but can lead to surprise invoices.
• Clear communication: The system needs robust notification capabilities. Team administrators must receive timely alerts when their credit pool is running low, nearing a limit, or has been exhausted.

To build a successful team allocation system, focus on transparency, flexibility, and proactive communication. A well-designed system should empower team administrators to manage their resources effortlessly without creating friction for end-users.

Consider these best practices:

• Provide a centralized admin dashboard: Give team administrators a clear, easy-to-understand view of the total credit pool, consumption trends, and usage per user. This transparency builds trust and helps them make informed decisions.
• Implement automated notifications: Set up automated emails or in-app alerts for key events, such as when the pool drops to 20%, 10%, and 0%. This prevents service disruptions and gives the team time to upgrade or purchase more credits.
• Offer flexible rollover policies: Consider allowing a portion of unused credits to roll over to the next month. A “rollover cap” (e.g., up to 25% of the monthly allowance) can add significant value and reduce the feeling of “wasted” resources without creating an unsustainable liability.
• Design clear and simple overage options: If you allow overages, make the pricing simple (e.g., a flat rate per 1,000 tokens). Give administrators control over whether to enable or disable overages to avoid unexpected costs.

Kinde provides the foundational billing infrastructure to build flexible, team-based subscription plans with shared resource pools. You can structure plans for organizations, combine recurring fees with metered usage, and manage it all through a single platform.

With Kinde’s billing engine, you can:

• Create organization-level plans: Structure your subscriptions around a team or organization rather than an individual user. This is the first step in creating a shared plan.
• Combine fixed and metered features: You can create a plan with a fixed recurring charge for the base subscription or per-seat fee, while adding a metered feature to represent the shared pool of AI tokens or credits.
• Implement tiered pricing: For your metered resources, you can set up tiered pricing where the cost per unit decreases as the team consumes more, creating a built-in incentive for them to upgrade to larger plans.

By using Kinde, you can offload the complexity of subscription management, invoicing, and usage tracking, allowing you to focus on building your core product features.

• Pricing models
• Create plans