Free vs. Paid AI Agents

A Comprehensive Guide to Understanding the Costs of AI Agents and How to Manage Your Balance

Overview

MindStudio makes it easy to access powerful AI capabilities—without hidden fees or upfront commitments. This guide explains which AI Agents are free to use, how paid agents work, and how to manage your usage balance.

Free AI Agents

MindStudio offers a range of powerful AI Agents that you can use entirely for free. These agents feature workflows designed to efficiently handle more basic tasks. Their simplified processes result in shorter run times, which helps keep the service free for users.

Here are a few examples of free AI agents:

• Research Agents

  Fact-check sources, find similar products, and uncover emails in one click.

• Content Analysis Agents

  Summarize, simplify, or de-bias long articles and videos instantly.

• Content Creation Agents

  Generate tweets, LinkedIn posts, YouTube ideas, and more—on demand.

• Image Generation Agents

  Create icons, illustrations, thumbnails, and other visuals in seconds.

Paid AI Agents

MindStudio also offers AI Agents that leverage complex AI models, advanced workflows, and sometimes even integrate custom data. This additional complexity means these agents are more costly to run.

Here are some examples of tasks run by paid AI agents:

• Running large-scale data analysis

• Using advanced or premium AI models

• Integrating external services and APIs

• Performing long-running or high-volume tasks

To run these agents, you'll need to have a balance in your MindStudio account.

Identifying Free vs. Paid AI Agents

To tell free agents from paid ones, look for a small label beneath each Agent’s Run button. If you see a “Paid Agent” label, running it will deduct from your balance; if there's no label, the Agent is completely free to use.

This indicator appears on both the MindStudio Agents page and the Chrome Extension, so you can confidently browse and try out different Agents knowing exactly which ones are free and which ones require payment.

Example:

In the image below, Deep Research and Research People are marked as Paid Agents, while others like Find Product Alternatives and TL;DR are free to use.

The Prepaid Balance

MindStudio uses a prepaid balance system for running paid AI Agents. Your balance is deducted based on the actual costs of model inference and execution.

Adding Funds to Your Balance

In your Workspace, navigate to Billing > Balance, then select Add Funds to choose an amount and payment method.

Cost of Running Paid AI Agents

The cost per run varies depending on the specific agent and the amount of data processed. Each paid agent displays a cost estimate on its details page, along with an average run time.

No More Usage Fees for Developers

If you're building your own AI Agents in MindStudio, we’ve removed the 2.9% processing fee previously charged on model usage. That means:

• You only pay for model inference costs.

• No API key management required.

• More freedom to experiment and iterate.

Price Breakdown Summary

Feature	Free AI Agents	Paid AI Agents
Cost	$0	Uses balance
API Keys Needed	No	No
Model Access	Basic & Mid-Tier	All Models
Usage Limit	Unlimited	Based on balance
Examples	Content generation, summarization, research, image creation	Premium workflows, external API integrations, advanced automation

Need Help?

If you’re unsure whether an AI Agent is free or paid, look for the usage indicator next to the “Run” button or check the Agent's details in the Workspace. For more information, reach out via Support Chat or visit our Quickstart Guide to learn how to build your own AI Agents.