Pricing
Kiro Usage Limits in 2026: Monthly Credits, Reset Dates and What Happens at Zero
Kiro usage limits by plan: monthly credits on Free, Pro, Pro+ and Power, whether a daily cap exists, when credits reset and what overage costs at zero.
9 min read
Limits checked Nov 4, 2026 on Kiro’s pricing page and in Kiro’s billing docs; add-on and notification rules checked Nov 1, 2026 in Kiro’s add-on credits and usage notifications docs. Every source is listed at the bottom. This page has no affiliate links (how we work).
Short answer: Kiro limits you by month, not by day. Every plan gets a monthly credit allowance, from 50 on Free to 10,000 on Power. Kiro publishes no daily cap. Plan credits reset at the start of each billing month and don’t roll over. When you hit zero, Free stops; paid plans can buy add-on credits at $0.04 each, and once those run out too, “Kiro pauses usage” (all checked Nov 1–4, 2026).
What a credit is and how fast each model burns one is a separate rabbit hole, and it lives in Kiro credits. This page is about the walls: how big, when they move, and what happens when you hit one.
Kiro usage limits by plan
| Plan | Credits/mo | At zero | Reset |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | 50 | Usage pauses | Next billing month |
| Pro | 1,000 | Add-ons $0.04 | Next billing month |
| Pro+ | 2,000 | Add-ons $0.04 | Next billing month |
| Pro Max | 5,000 | Add-ons $0.04 | Next billing month |
| Power | 10,000 | Add-ons $0.04 | Next billing month |
| Enterprise | Per plan | Overage $0.04, off by default | Next billing month |
Sources: Kiro pricing and billing docs, checked Nov 4, 2026; add-on credits doc, checked Nov 1, 2026. Prices for each plan are in Kiro pricing.
A few rules sit underneath that table:
- Credits are fractional. Kiro meters “to the second decimal point, so the least number of credits a task can consume is 0.01 credits” (Kiro pricing, checked Nov 4, 2026).
- Almost everything spends them. “Any prompt you ask Kiro to execute, whether in vibe mode or spec mode, as well as spec refinement, task execution, and agent hook execution, will consume credits” (same page). Hooks count. A hook that fires on every save is a meter running in the background.
- The model multiplies the bill. Opus 5.5 burns 2.0x what Auto does for the same task, and some models go much higher. The per-model math is in Kiro credits.
- You can watch the meter. The dashboard shows “the monthly credit limits for your plan, the number of credits used, and credits remaining”, “updated at least every 5 minutes” (pricing FAQ), and Kiro can warn you at 80% of your monthly credits with the “Notifications: Billing” toggle (notifications doc, checked Nov 1, 2026).
Is there a Kiro daily usage limit?
No daily limit is published. Kiro’s pricing page, billing docs and add-on docs all describe monthly credits only, and none of them mentions a per-day or per-hour cap (not published, checked Nov 4, 2026).
That’s a real difference from tools that meter in five-hour windows. On Kiro you can spend your whole month on the 2nd if you want to. Nothing slows you down except the balance.
The flip side: no daily cap means no daily safety net either. If an agent loop or an Opus-heavy session runs away with your credits on a Tuesday, nothing stops it before the monthly wall. The 80% notification is the only built-in early warning Kiro documents.
When do Kiro credits reset, and do unused credits roll over?
Reset: “For all tiers, your plan credits renew at the beginning of the next billing cycle” (billing docs, checked Nov 4, 2026). Kiro “processes paid subscriptions on the 1st day of each calendar month”, and its FAQ says “Usage limits reset at the start of each billing month” (Kiro pricing, checked Nov 4, 2026). For a paid plan, that means the 1st, not the day you signed up.
Rollover: none for plan credits. “Unused credits do not roll over to the next month” (pricing FAQ).
But not every credit expires on the 1st. As of Nov 4, 2026, Kiro has three kinds, and they behave differently:
| Credit type | Expires | Order used |
|---|---|---|
| Plan credits | Next billing month | First |
| Trial credits | 12 months after receipt | After plan credits |
| Add-on credits | 12 months after purchase | After plan credits |
Sources: billing docs and Kiro pricing, checked Nov 4, 2026; add-on credits doc, checked Nov 1, 2026.
Trial credits “don’t reset at the end of the month. They stay available until they expire”, per the billing docs. Add-ons “roll over and expire 12 months from the date of purchase”, per the pricing FAQ. Kiro spends your plan credits first, so the ones that would vanish on the 1st go before the ones that last a year.
What happens when you run out of Kiro credits
It depends on your plan.
Free: you wait. Add-on credits are “Not available” on Free (billing docs, checked Nov 4, 2026), so your 50 credits come back with the next billing month, or you upgrade.
Pro, Pro+, Pro Max, Power: you buy add-ons. They cost $0.04 a credit, are “billed immediately when you buy a pack”, and packs run “from $5 (125 credits) to $100” (Kiro pricing, checked Nov 4, 2026), with up to 5 packs at a time (add-on doc, checked Nov 1, 2026). This is not automatic overage for individual plans: you choose a pack. And when everything is gone, the add-on doc is plain: “If you exhaust both plan credits and all add-on credits, Kiro pauses usage until you purchase more add-on credits or your plan resets at the start of the next billing cycle.”
Enterprise: automatic overage exists, but someone has to switch it on. “Admins can enable overages so users keep working past their limits automatically”, billed “at $0.04 per credit at month-end”, and “Overages are disabled by default” (pricing FAQ, checked Nov 4, 2026).
One user-reported edge case: a Kiro user who enabled overage reported the message “Error sending prompt: You’ve reached your overage limit.” in GitHub issue #12173 (open, no maintainer reply when checked Nov 1, 2026). That’s one report, not documented behavior.
Upgrading mid-month instead
Upgrading is the other way out, and the rules changed on Nov 1, 2026. Per the billing docs (checked Nov 4, 2026):
- First upgrade from Free: “the rest of that month on Pro is free, and you get 500 trial credits on any paid plan”. The trial credits last 12 months.
- Everything is prorated to the second. Credits too, not only the fee. Kiro’s example: upgrade to Pro at 00:00 UTC on day 15 of a 30-day month and you get 533 plan credits plus 500 trial credits, for $0.
- Starting bigger: a first upgrade straight to Pro+ in the same example costs $10.67, with 1,067 plan credits plus 500 trial credits.
- Later upgrades: prorated, “without a second free month”.
- Add-ons survive the upgrade. Your new plan’s credits are used first, “so your add-on credits are preserved for future use”.
- Downgrades take effect the following month, and you pay the full current-month fee.
If you upgraded before Nov 1, Kiro says “you keep the $20 discount and your unused credits” (Kiro pricing, checked Nov 4, 2026). The tier-by-tier upgrade math is in Kiro Pro vs Pro+.
Plan credits that die on the 1st, add-ons at double the in-plan rate, and no daily throttle to stop a runaway session. Each rule is defensible on its own. Together they punish you both for under-using and for over-using, and the only protection Kiro builds in is a notification at 80%.
Kiro CLI vs IDE: same credit pool?
Yes. Kiro says subscriptions “can be used with Kiro IDE, Kiro CLI, Kiro Web, Kiro Crew, ACP compatible IDEs, and automation in software development (ex: reviews during CI/CD)”, and that “Credits are consumed regardless of which interface the work runs on (IDE, CLI, or web)” (Kiro pricing, checked Nov 4, 2026). There’s no separate CLI allowance, so a long CLI session draws from the same monthly balance as your IDE chats.
Two fences around that pool, from the same page:
- Kiro Web is “Available to Kiro Pro, Pro+, Pro Max, and Power users”, not Free.
- Third-party harnesses are out. Use through tools “such as OpenClaw” that route requests outside Kiro’s own interfaces “is not permitted”. And “each developer needs their own subscription”, so the pool isn’t shareable either.
Here’s what I’d do
Turn on the 80% notification first. With no daily cap, it’s your only early warning.
Spend the month’s credits before add-ons matter. Plan credits die on the 1st and get used first anyway, so a quiet final week of the month is wasted money.
Buy add-ons for spikes, upgrade for habits. Add-ons last 12 months, which suits one bad week a quarter. If you’re buying packs every month, the next tier up is cheaper per credit; Kiro pricing has the breakeven.
First upgrade early in the month, if you can. The free Pro month covers the rest of the month, and credits are prorated, so upgrading on the 2nd gets you far more plan credits than upgrading on the 28th.
Audit hooks and default to Auto. Hooks spend credits on every trigger, and Opus at 2.0x halves your month.
Only on Free? Is Kiro free? covers what 50 credits get you. Weighing it against another editor? Kiro vs Cursor compares the meters, Cursor alternatives lists the wider field, and AI coding tools compared has every plan in one table.
Hitting the Pro credit wall and eyeing Power? Kiro Pro vs Power shows when $200 is cheaper than add-ons.
FAQ
What are Kiro usage limits? Kiro usage limits are monthly credits: 50 on Free, 1,000 on Pro, 2,000 on Pro+, 5,000 on Pro Max and 10,000 on Power (kiro.dev, Nov 4, 2026).
Does Kiro have a daily limit? No daily limit is published; Kiro’s pricing and billing docs list monthly credits only, checked Nov 4, 2026.
What happens when I run out of Kiro credits? On paid plans you can buy add-on credits at $0.04 each; once plan and add-on credits are both gone, Kiro pauses usage until you buy more or the plan resets.
Is Kiro free usage limited? Yes, Kiro Free has 50 credits a month, can’t buy add-on credits, and pauses until the next billing month when they run out.
When do Kiro credits reset? Plan credits renew at the start of each billing month, which is the 1st for paid plans, and unused plan credits don’t roll over.
Do Kiro CLI and IDE share credits? Yes, Kiro says credits are consumed the same way whether work runs in the IDE, the CLI or the web.
Sources
- Kiro pricing (plan credits, add-on price and packs, Enterprise overage off by default, billing on the 1st, reset and no rollover, fractional metering, dashboard, IDE/CLI/Web credit line, Kiro Web plans, harness rule, pre-Nov 1 $20 discount kept): https://kiro.dev/pricing/ (verified 2026-11-04)
- Kiro billing docs (tier credits, add-ons not on Free, first upgrade from Nov 1, proration to the second, day-15 example, trial credits, add-ons kept on upgrade, downgrades, credit reset): https://kiro.dev/docs/billing/ (verified 2026-11-04)
- Kiro add-on credits doc (up to 5 packs, usage pauses when plan and add-on credits are exhausted): https://kiro.dev/docs/billing/add-on-credits/ (verified 2026-11-01)
- Kiro usage notifications doc (80% notification, “Notifications: Billing”): https://kiro.dev/docs/billing/proactive-usage-notifications/ (verified 2026-11-01)
- GitHub issue #12173 (“You’ve reached your overage limit.” user report): https://github.com/kirodotdev/Kiro/issues/12173 (verified 2026-11-01)