Pricing Transparency Checklist: 7 Questions to Ask AI Tools

AI tool pricing has a transparency problem. Credit packs, tiered feature locks, renewal rates buried in fine print, revision costs discovered after the first miss — the industry has learned every trick of the mobile-game store. This checklist is your defense: seven concrete questions to ask any AI image or video tool before you pay. A trustworthy tool answers all seven in plain language. A tool that dodges them is telling you something too.

1. What is the per-output price, in rupees?

The single most revealing question. Many tools answer in credits, tokens, or “generations” — units that obscure the real cost until you've already bought a pack. Demand the conversion: how many rupees does one finished image cost, one finished video? If the answer requires a calculator and a help-center article, the pricing is designed to confuse. A transparent catalog looks like Etch's: ₹15 for a single image, ₹49 for a 4-pack, ₹19 for a video — prices per output, in rupees, on the pricing page.

2. Is the paid tier watermark-free?

It sounds absurd to ask — you paid, of course the watermark is gone — but some tools watermark lower paid tiers or charge extra for clean downloads. A watermarked paid output is a preview you were charged for. Confirm before paying that the tier you're buying delivers clean files, and check what the free tier's watermark looks like so you can use it honestly for what it is: a style test, not a deliverable.

3. What does a revision cost?

AI generation misses sometimes — wrong background, off lighting, a detail that needs fixing. The revision policy is where budgets actually break: some tools charge full price for every regeneration, turning one miss into double the cost. Ask for the revision price up front. A flat, cheap revision fee — Etch's is ₹5 per remake — means misses are a predictable line item instead of a budget surprise. If the tool has no revision path at all, every miss is a full-price reorder.

4. Do I get commercial rights?

“I paid for it” and “I can use it in my ads” are different statements. Some tools restrict commercial use to higher tiers; others stay vague in their terms and leave you exposed. If your images will appear on product listings, paid ads, or client work, get the commercial-use answer in writing for the exact tier you're buying. Vagueness here is a red flag — rights should be a sentence, not a legal scavenger hunt.

5. What does the subscription renew at — and what happens if I cancel?

Introductory pricing, annual-billing discounts shown as monthly rates, and credits that expire when you cancel: subscription renewals are where the real price hides. Ask three sub-questions: what is the renewal price (not the intro price), do unused credits or generations roll over, and can you still download your past work after cancelling? A tool confident in its value answers all three without making you hunt.

6. Is there a human review before delivery?

Fully automated pipelines ship whatever the model produces — including the obvious misses a human would catch in seconds. A human quality check before delivery is the difference between “AI-generated” and “AI-assisted professional work.” Ask whether anyone looks at the output before it reaches you, and what happens when the reviewer spots a problem. On Etch, every paid order passes a human review, which is part of why the remake rate stays low.

7. What is the refund or remake policy?

Most AI tools don't refund generations — the compute is spent the moment you click. That's fair, but it makes the fallback policy critical. The honest versions: a cheap fixed-price remake path, a re-generation allowance for clear misses, or a human review that prevents most misses from reaching you. “No refunds, no revisions, no review” means you absorb 100% of the model's failure rate. Know that before you pay, not after your third bad render.

Etch's answers to its own checklist

Fair is fair — here's the checklist applied to Etch itself. Per-output prices in rupees: ₹15 single, ₹49 4-pack, ₹19 video, ₹29 Video Studio job, ₹5 remake — all on the pricing page. Paid outputs are delivered clean and watermark-free; the free tier is explicitly watermarked previews. Revisions are a flat ₹5. There is no subscription, so there is no renewal rate and nothing to cancel. Every paid order passes a human quality check before delivery. Order from the create page and pay per creation over UPI.