Junie - Is there any reason to subscribe to AI Ultimate when it's appear to be just worse than pro?
Hi there,
From what I understand, AI quota is clearly worse value than top-up credits. Top-up credits still expire, but only after a year, which makes them far more usable. Given that, why would anyone choose to purchase a Junie licence at the AI Ultimate tier?
It seems more cost-effective to pay $10 for the Pro licence and then spend an additional $20 on top-up credits. The only downside is losing the 5 AI credits that come with the Ultimate plan each month. The upside is that the credits you do buy do not expire immediately and therefore have greater long-term value.
To be honest, I do not agree with the policy that unused monthly quota does not carry over, and I also do not agree that top-up credits expire after a year. It is similar to money in your wallet disappearing because you did not spend it fast enough. However, if one must choose between the two, top-up credits are still the better option because you can at least accumulate and retain what you do not use across months.
Is there any important detail I may be missing that would undermine this conclusion? If the old token system was costing JetBrains too much money because people used too many tokens, I do not understand why users who deliberately conserve their usage are penalized by not being allowed to carry over or bank unused credits like a wallet balance. Especially since that's AI compute which was never spent to begin with.
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Hello,
Thank you for your question.
Indeed, if your interaction with the agent is not very frequent, it might be excessive to pay $30 for a product you rarely use. In this case, it would be more beneficial to choose the Pro plan and use top-up credits when you reach your monthly limit.
For users who interact with Junie heavily, the AI Ultimate subscription is usually the better choice. In some cases, if the monthly limit is still not sufficient, topping up with AI Credits can help cover the additional usage.
Overall, the Ultimate plan tends to be more cost-effective for regular or heavy Junie users, as it offers a lower per-credit price and a larger monthly quota. Meanwhile, light or occasional users may find the Pro plan plus top-up credits more flexible, since top-up credits can be accumulated and used over a longer period.
Regarding the rollover of unused credits, I would suggest upvoting the corresponding feature request. If you’d like to see this functionality available for both monthly and annual plans, please feel free to leave a comment here:
https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/JUNIE-947/Allow-AI-Credits-rollover-to-the-next-month-for-Annual-Subscriptions
I was curious so I just tried swapping to the Ultimate plan and now my monthly credits is 35, which is unfortunate, because effectively the AI Ultimate subscription is more expensive than just Top Up Credits. Has anyone else done the math? If I already have the all products pack and thus effectively get the 10 monthly credits for free, to reach 35 monthly credits I would only need to buy 20 top up credits, which is much cheaper than the AI Ultimate subscription, even if done annually. So to me this pricing doesn't seem to make any sense?
Thanks for your feedback. AI Ultimate is designed more for people who consistently need higher volumes of AI usage and prefer a single, predictable subscription rather than topping up as they go. But for your current needs, it’s completely reasonable that the top-up option feels more cost‑effective.
I’ve shared your feedback with our team so we can take it into account as we continue reviewing and refining our pricing. If you’d like, you can switch back from AI Ultimate to your previous setup in your JetBrains Account, and if you run into any issues or have more questions about the plans, we’re happy to help.
To contact support for any inquiries, you can click here: https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=66731