Download credits can be used in two ways:
- To issue voucher codes that you can use to distribute tours through your own channels. Voucher codes can be unique, with one credit per voucher, or you can add multiple credits to a single voucher.
- To make tours available for free at voicemap.me and in the VoiceMap apps. (Listeners don’t need to sign up to listen to any of the locations on a free tour at voicemap.me. You’ll find an example here.)
Your credit balance #
Your VoiceMap account has a download credit balance that you can see by going to the Publisher Dashboard. Every download deducts one credit from this balance, but this works differently for vouchers and free tours:
- When you allocate credits to a voucher, these are deducted from the credit balance. But if you reduce the number of credits allocated to a voucher, or delete the voucher before it gets used, these credits are returned to your credit balance. For example, if you have a balance of 100 and issue a voucher valid for 50 downloads, your balance goes down to 50. But if you reduce the credits allocated to that voucher by 20, your credit balance goes back up to 70.
- When a free tour is downloaded, one credit is deducted from your balance. If your balance drops to zero, the fallback price you chose when you completed the tour’s final touches is used. When you top up your credit balance, the tour is immediately available for free again.
Credit expiry #
Credits normally expire after one year. This expiry date is displayed on the Publisher Dashboard, under the Credit Purchases tab. After this date, expired credits no longer reflect in your credit balance, but credits that have already been allocated to a voucher don’t expire.
Going back to our example balance of 100 credits, if you bought these on 1 August 2022, they’ll expire on 31 July 2023. But if you allocated 30 to a voucher code, and only 10 of these have been redeemed, that voucher code can still be used for an additional 20 downloads at any time.
That doesn’t mean you can remove those 20 expired credits from the voucher to reallocate them. Expired credits can’t be returned to your overall credit balance.
Promotional Credits #
When you create your first tour, you get 10 download credits for free. You get 10 more for each tour you publish.
Credit Pricing #
VoiceMap has three pricing plans for publishers and the price you pay for download credits depends on your pricing plan. The three plans are Basic, Pro and Premium. You’ll find more information about them here.
On the Basic Plan, credits cost $0.89 each.
On the Pro Plan, you receive 1,000 credits for $620 per year and each additional credit you require after that is $0.62. (There is a similar monthly option too.)
On the Premium Plan, you receive 5,000 credits for $1,570 per year and each additional credit you require after that is $0.31. (Once again, there is a similar monthly option.)