---
title: Pricing and credits
description: Credit costs for Stobo MCP tools and how to manage your usage
---

Stobo MCP uses a credit-based pricing model. Most tools are free — you only pay for AI-powered generation and optimization features.

## Credit costs

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Free tools" icon="circle-check" color="#10b981">
    No API key or credits required:
    
    - `audit_site`
    - `audit_article`
    - `audit_freshness`
    - `generate_robots_txt`
    - `generate_sitemap`
    - `generate_freshness_code`
    - `check_connection`
  </Card>
  
  <Card title="Paid tools" icon="coins" color="#f59e0b">
    Requires API key and credits:
    
    - `generate_llms_txt` — 500 credits
    - `extract_tone` — 500 credits
    - `rewrite_article` — 1,000 credits
    - `get_credits` — Free, but requires API key
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

---

## Tool pricing breakdown

| Tool | Cost | What you get |
|------|------|-------------|
| `audit_site` | **Free** | Full 30 SEO + 7 AEO audit, blog detection, sitemap discovery. Results cached 24h. |
| `audit_article` | **Free** | Article-level audit: 7 SEO + 14 AEO checks. Optionally target a keyword. |
| `audit_freshness` | **Free** | Scan up to 50 sitemap URLs for missing date markup. |
| `generate_robots_txt` | **Free** | AI-friendly robots.txt with GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot allowed. |
| `generate_sitemap` | **Free** | Crawl up to 200 pages and generate a spec-compliant sitemap.xml. |
| `generate_freshness_code` | **Free** | JSON-LD snippet with publish and update dates. |
| `generate_llms_txt` | **500 credits** | Spec-compliant llms.txt file based on your site structure. |
| `extract_tone` | **500 credits** | Analyze up to 10 blog posts and create a brand voice profile. |
| `rewrite_article` | **1,000 credits** | Full audit + tone-matched rewrite optimized for SEO and AI visibility. |
| `get_credits` | **Free** | Check your plan, usage, and remaining balance. Requires API key. |
| `check_connection` | **Free** | Verify the Stobo API is reachable. No API key needed. |

---

## How credits work

<Steps>
  <Step title="Sign up for a Stobo account">
    Go to [trystobo.com](https://trystobo.com) and create an account. You'll start with a free tier that includes credits for testing.
  </Step>
  
  <Step title="Generate an API key">
    Navigate to **Settings > API Keys** and create a new key. Add it to your MCP server config:
    
    ```json
    {
      "mcpServers": {
        "stobo": {
          "command": "uvx",
          "args": ["--native-tls", "stobo-mcp"],
          "env": {
            "STOBO_API_KEY": "your-api-key"
          }
        }
      }
    }
    ```
  </Step>
  
  <Step title="Use paid tools">
    Once your API key is configured, you can use paid tools like `generate_llms_txt`, `extract_tone`, and `rewrite_article`.
    
    Credits are deducted automatically when you run a paid tool.
  </Step>
  
  <Step title="Check your balance">
    Ask your AI assistant:
    
    ```
    How many credits do I have left?
    ```
    
    This runs `get_credits` and shows:
    - Current plan tier
    - Credits used this billing period
    - Remaining credits
    - Breakdown by tool
  </Step>
  
  <Step title="Top up when needed">
    If you run out of credits, log in to [trystobo.com](https://trystobo.com) and purchase more. Free tools continue to work even with zero credits.
  </Step>
</Steps>

---

## Free vs paid tools

### Why are audits free?

Audits (`audit_site`, `audit_article`, `audit_freshness`) are **free** because they're read-only analysis. They don't generate new content or require AI inference — just structured data extraction and scoring.

They also serve as discovery tools. Once you see what's failing, you can decide whether to fix issues manually or use paid generators.

### Why do generators cost credits?

Tools like `generate_llms_txt`, `extract_tone`, and `rewrite_article` use AI models to analyze your content and generate production-ready output. These operations:

- Require server-side inference (GPT-4, Claude, etc.)
- Fetch and parse multiple pages
- Run computationally expensive analysis (readability scoring, tone extraction, etc.)
- Return high-quality, deployment-ready content

### What's free to use without an API key?

You can use these tools **without any account or API key**:

- `audit_site`
- `audit_article`
- `audit_freshness`
- `generate_robots_txt`
- `generate_sitemap`
- `generate_freshness_code`
- `check_connection`

This lets you audit any website and generate basic fix files (robots.txt, sitemap.xml, date markup) for free.

---

## Caching and cost savings

<Note>
  Audit results are **cached for 24 hours**. If you run the same audit twice within 24 hours, the second call is instant and doesn't count against rate limits.
</Note>

### How caching works

- `audit_site` results are cached by URL (normalized)
- `audit_article` results are cached by URL + keyword (if provided)
- `audit_freshness` results are cached by sitemap URL + limit

### Example: Using cache to save time

```
You: Audit https://example.com
AI: [Runs audit, returns score: 75%]

You: Share that audit with my team
AI: [Re-runs audit, uses cache, returns instantly]

You: What was the performance score again?
AI: [Re-runs audit, uses cache, returns instantly]
```

All three requests hit the cache after the first run.

### Cache expiration

Caches expire after 24 hours. After that, the next audit will re-fetch and re-score your site.

Use this to:
- Track daily improvements after deploying fixes
- Compare before/after scores without burning credits

---

## Rate limits

<Tip>
  Stobo MCP has generous rate limits designed for conversational use. Normal usage stays well within limits.
</Tip>

### What triggers rate limits?

- Running the same tool repeatedly in quick succession (e.g., 10 audits in 10 seconds)
- Batch operations on large sitemaps (e.g., `audit_freshness` with `limit=1000`)

### What happens if you hit a rate limit?

You'll see an error:

```json
{
  "error": "Rate limit reached. Please wait a moment and try again.",
  "status_code": 429
}
```

Just wait a few seconds and retry. Rate limits reset quickly.

### How to avoid rate limits

- Use caching — don't re-run the same audit unnecessarily
- Batch requests when possible (e.g., "Audit these 3 URLs" instead of 3 separate prompts)
- Use `limit` parameters to control batch size (e.g., `audit_freshness` with `limit=50` instead of `limit=500`)

---

## Cost comparison: Stobo MCP vs manual

### Without Stobo MCP

Auditing a website manually with `web_fetch` requires:

- **6 web fetches** (homepage, robots.txt, sitemap.xml, llms.txt, 2 blog posts)
- **~71,000 tokens** of raw HTML pasted into context
- **Manual parsing** of meta tags, headers, and structured data
- **No server-side metrics** (Core Web Vitals, TTFB, readability scores)

### With Stobo MCP

- **1 tool call** (`audit_site`)
- **~20,000 tokens** of structured JSON
- **Automatic parsing** with 30 SEO + 7 AEO checks
- **Server-side metrics** included (Playwright-based Core Web Vitals, TTFB, Flesch-Kincaid scores)

### Full workflow comparison

| Task | Manual (web_fetch) | Stobo MCP | Savings |
|------|-------------------|-----------|--------|
| Site audit | 71,000 tokens / 6 fetches | 20,000 tokens / 1 call | **72% fewer tokens** |
| Freshness audit | 60,000 tokens / 20 fetches | 3,000 tokens / 1 call | **95% fewer tokens** |
| llms.txt generation | 35,000 tokens / 6 fetches | 3,000 tokens / 1 call | **91% fewer tokens** |
| Tone extraction | 35,000 tokens / 10 fetches | 5,000 tokens / 1 call | **86% fewer tokens** |
| **Total** | **201,000 tokens / 42 fetches** | **31,000 tokens / 4 calls** | **85% fewer tokens** |

That's **170,000 tokens saved** for a full optimization workflow.

---

## Usage tips

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Start with free tools">
    Before spending credits:
    
    1. Run `audit_site` to see what's failing
    2. Fix issues manually (robots.txt, sitemap.xml, date markup)
    3. Use paid tools only for complex tasks (llms.txt, tone extraction, rewrites)
    
    This way you only pay for AI-generated content, not basic fixes.
  </Accordion>
  
  <Accordion title="Use extract_tone once per brand">
    You only need to run `extract_tone` **once** per website or brand. The tone profile is stored and reused for all future `rewrite_article` calls.
    
    If your writing style changes, re-run `extract_tone` to update the profile.
  </Accordion>
  
  <Accordion title="Batch rewrites for efficiency">
    If you're rewriting multiple articles:
    
    1. Run `extract_tone` once (500 credits)
    2. Run `rewrite_article` for each post (1,000 credits each)
    
    The tone profile is shared across all rewrites, so you only pay the 500-credit extraction cost once.
  </Accordion>
  
  <Accordion title="Monitor usage with get_credits">
    Run `get_credits` periodically to see:
    - Which tools you use most
    - How many credits you have left
    - When your billing period resets
    
    This helps you budget credits and avoid surprise overages.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

---

## Getting more credits

<Steps>
  <Step title="Log in to Stobo">
    Go to [trystobo.com](https://trystobo.com) and sign in.
  </Step>
  
  <Step title="Navigate to billing">
    Click **Settings > Billing** to see your current plan and usage.
  </Step>
  
  <Step title="Purchase credits or upgrade">
    Choose a plan tier or buy a credit pack. Credits are added to your account instantly.
  </Step>
  
  <Step title="Continue using paid tools">
    No need to restart your editor or update your config. Your API key will automatically have access to the new credits.
  </Step>
</Steps>

---

## What happens if you run out of credits?

If you hit zero credits:

- **Free tools continue to work** (audits, robots.txt, sitemap, freshness code)
- **Paid tools return an error**:
  
  ```json
  {
    "error": "You've run out of credits. Top up at https://trystobo.com to continue using premium tools.",
    "status_code": 402
  }
  ```
  
- **Your AI assistant will notify you** and suggest topping up

Top up at [trystobo.com](https://trystobo.com) to resume using paid tools.