How Credits Are Counted and Deducted
Taikai App has no subscription and no per-tournament fee. The entire billing model is one counter: your credit balance, shared across all your tournaments, decremented by approvals. This article is the precise accounting of when that counter moves.
The one rule
One credit = one approved competitor. Per person, per tournament — not per event entered, not per match fought. A competitor doing kata, kumite, and team kumite still costs exactly one credit.
What costs a credit
- Approving a pending registration — the moment of deduction for online registrations that need manual review.
- Auto-approval of a paid online registration — same deduction, just triggered by the completed payment instead of your click.
- Adding a walk-in — walk-ins are created approved, so the credit is deducted at creation.
- CSV import — one credit per imported competitor; the whole batch is checked against your balance up front.
- Pay-later approvals — how the competitor pays you is irrelevant to the credit system.
Deductions are atomic: the balance check and the deduction happen in one transaction, so simultaneous approvals can never overdraw your balance into the negative.
What doesn't cost anything
- Creating, cloning, or publishing tournaments
- Registrations arriving and sitting as pending
- Generating brackets, scoring, results, and certificates
- Staff, judge, coach, and parent memberships
- Declining a registration
If your balance hits zero, approvals fail with an explicit message — "Insufficient credits. Need 3, have 0." — while registrations keep accumulating as pending. Nothing is lost; approve once you've topped up.
Buying credits
Credits are sold in packs — Starter, Club, Regional, and Championship, ranging from a 10-credit trial pack to 600 credits — with the per-credit price dropping as packs get larger, and beta pricing bringing the biggest pack down to $0.25 per credit. Current sizes and prices are always on the Pricing page and your Credits page.
Checkout runs through Stripe; Taikai App never sees your card number. Credits from any pack stack onto one balance, never expire, and work across every tournament you run.
Transaction history
Every balance change is logged with its running balance and, where relevant, the tournament and registration involved. Four entry types exist:
| Type | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Purchase | Credits added via a Stripe checkout |
| Usage | A credit spent approving a competitor |
| Refund | A credit returned on unapproval or deletion — see refunds |
| Grant | Complimentary credits added by Taikai App support |