Plus Is for Branding Removal, Not for Credits
Pick Gamma Plus at $9 a month on annual billing if your decks face clients or students, and stay on Free if the badge does not bother you. Gamma lists Free with 400 credits at signup that never refill, and Plus with 1,000 credits a month, as of October 2026. The credits matter less than they look, because the Free plan already exports to PDF, PPTX, PNG, and Google Slides. What Free cannot do is remove the Gamma branding or generate more than 10 slides per prompt, and those two limits are the real reason to pay $12 a month, or $108 a year.
Everything below comes from the Gamma pricing page and two help center articles, all checked in October 2026. Confirm current pricing on the official site before subscribing, since the credit allowances have moved more than the prices.
The Free Plan Is a Trial That Never Refills
- ● 400 credits arrive once and do not refresh
- ● Referrals add 200 credits each up to 2,000
- ● Free decks carry Gamma branding on export
Most free tiers give you a monthly allowance. Gamma does not. The pricing page states that the Free plan includes 400 starter credits that do not refill, and the help center adds that free accounts can hold at most 2,000 credits.
The only way to top up without paying is the referral program. Each friend who signs up earns you 200 credits, and the referral credits stop accumulating at 2,000. That is a ceiling of 8 referrals before the program stops helping.
So the Free plan behaves like a trial with no expiry date rather than a free product. You can spend the 400 credits in a week or spread them over a year, but when they are gone, editing by hand is all that remains.
Ten Slides Per Prompt Against One Hundred
Free generates up to 10 slides per prompt, as of October 2026. A lesson or a short pitch fits, but a 30-slide training deck has to be built in three separate generations and stitched together.
Plus raises that to 100 slides per prompt. For anyone converting a long document into a deck, that single limit saves more time than the extra credits do, because the AI keeps the structure consistent across the whole run.
Both plans import from PDF and PPTX and export to the same four formats. If you expected Plus to unlock PowerPoint export, it does not need to, because Gamma and the other AI presentation makers already treat export as a baseline feature.
Free, Plus, Pro and Ultra Side by Side
The table uses the Gamma pricing page as of October 2026. Annual prices are per seat per month on annual billing, with the yearly total Gamma shows beside each plan.
| Plan | Monthly billing | Annual billing | Credits | Slides per prompt | Gamma branding | Image models |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | 400 at signup, no refill | 10 | Stays on | Basic |
| Plus | $12 a seat | $9 a seat, $108 a year | 1,000 a month | 100 | Removed | Advanced |
| Pro | $25 a seat | $18 a seat, $216 a year | 4,000 a month | 100 | Removed, custom branding | Premium |
| Ultra | $100 a seat | $90 a seat, $1,080 a year | 20,000 a month | 100 | Removed, custom branding | Most advanced, plus video |
| Business | Not listed on the individual tab | Not listed on the individual tab | 10,000 a seat a month | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed |
Pro is the plan Gamma marks as most popular, and the jump from 1,000 to 4,000 credits for $6 more a month on annual billing is the best credit price in the lineup. Plus remains the right answer for people who need the branding gone and little else.
Three Ways to Pay for the Same Thousand Credits
Gamma sells credits three ways, and the prices do not line up. Plus includes 1,000 credits for $12 on monthly billing, which is 1.2 cents a credit. The help center lists top-up packs at 1,500 credits for $6, which is 0.4 cents a credit, available only to paid subscribers.
That means a Plus subscriber who runs out should buy a $6 pack rather than upgrade to Pro for one busy month. Two packs add 3,000 credits for $12, which is more than Pro adds over Plus at the same price. Auto-recharge can trigger when the balance drops below a threshold you set, such as 500 credits.
Purchased credits never expire while you stay subscribed, and they sit outside the rollover cap. Cancel, and the help center says they expire one year after the cancellation date. The one thing you cannot do is buy packs on Free, which is why the 400 starter credits feel so small.
A Consultant and a Teacher Priced Across a Year
- ● Three client months on Plus cost $36, not $108
- ● A weekly presenter saves $36 a year on annual
- ● Four seats on annual Plus cost $432
Two situations show where Plus pays off. Both use the prices on the Gamma pricing page as of October 2026 and assume the prices hold for the full year.
A consultant who delivers three client decks a year, one per quarter. The branding has to go, so Free is out. Subscribing to Plus only in the three months with a client deck costs 3 payments of $12, or $36 for the year.
| Route | Calculation | Yearly cost |
|---|---|---|
| Plus monthly, three months | 3 x $12 | $36 |
| Plus annual | 12 x $9 | $108 |
| Pro monthly, three months | 3 x $25 | $75 |
Monthly billing wins by $72 because the consultant needs the plan for only a quarter of the year. The annual price only becomes cheaper once the subscription runs for 10 months or more, since 9 monthly payments come to $108.
A teacher who builds a deck every week during a 36-week school year.
The weekly rhythm keeps the plan active for about 9 months. Nine monthly payments of $12 come to $108, exactly the annual price, so one extra month of summer planning tips the choice to annual. With 12 months of use, annual saves $36 against $144 on monthly billing, a 25 percent saving.
For a department of four teachers sharing one workspace, four annual Plus seats cost $432, and four monthly seats cost $576. The AI tools for teachers guide covers what else to check before a school signs up, including student data rules.
The example shows that the number of active months decides the billing choice, not the number of decks. Count the months you will actually generate something before picking annual.
Where the Credits Actually Go Inside a Deck
Gamma does not publish a fixed price per slide. The help center says the credits an action uses vary with the feature, the AI model, and the length of the generation, and that longer generations generally use more.
Images are the expensive part. Image slides show their credit cost before you confirm, and each regeneration creates a new image and charges again, so three tries at one title image cost three times. The effort picker adds a second lever, because higher effort levels use more credits and take longer.
Text-only decks are the cheap case, and that is the trick for stretching the Free plan. Generate the structure with images turned off, drop in your own photos, and keep the 400 credits for the one slide where an AI image earns its place.
What Rollover and Refresh Dates Do to Your Balance
Plan credits refresh on your billing cycle date, not on the first of the month. A subscriber who signs up on the 20th gets a new 1,000 credits on the 20th of each month, which matters when a deadline falls on the 18th.
Unused plan credits roll over up to double the plan size. Plus can therefore hold up to 2,000 credits and Pro up to 8,000, as of October 2026. A quiet month banks a buffer for a busy one, but a second quiet month wastes the overflow, so the rollover rewards steady use rather than long gaps.
Gamma draws from plan credits first, then purchased credits, then workspace credits. If you bought a pack during a crunch, it stays untouched until the monthly allowance is gone, which is the order you would want.
Which Gamma Plan Fits How Often You Present
- ● Occasional decks stay on Free with branding
- ● Client-facing decks need Plus for the clean export
- ● Image-heavy weekly decks point to Pro
If you make a deck every few months and do not mind the badge: Free fits. Spend the 400 credits slowly, keep generations short, and export to PPTX to finish the edits elsewhere.
If anything you make reaches a client, a board, or a classroom: Plus fits. The $9 a month on annual billing, or $12 month to month, buys the clean export and the 100-slide prompts, and that is the whole case.
If you present weekly and lean on AI images: Pro fits. Four times the credits for $18 a month on annual billing, plus premium image models, costs less per credit than Plus with top-ups. Check whether AI-generated images can be used commercially before shipping those slides to a client.
If you only have one busy month a year: Plus for that month, then cancel. Three months of Plus cost $36, which is a third of the annual price.
If you run a team that shares one credit pool: The Business tab lists 10,000 credits per seat a month in the FAQ. Pricing lives on a separate tab, so compare it with four individual Plus seats before deciding.
Burn the Free Credits on a Real Deck First
Sign up, generate the deck you actually have to deliver next, and watch the credit counter. Image slides show their credit cost before you generate, and the help center says longer generations use more, so one real deck tells you more than any estimate.
If the 400 credits survive that deck with room to spare and the badge is acceptable, stay on Free until they run out. If the export needs to look like yours, the decision was never about credits, and Plus at $9 a month on annual billing is the floor.
Confirm current pricing and credit allowances on the official site before subscribing. Gamma adjusts credit amounts and rollover rules more often than its headline prices, and the models behind the image generation change without notice. Text inside those generated images is still a weak point, as why AI image generators get text wrong explains.
FAQ
Do Gamma free credits reset every month?
No. The Gamma pricing page says the Free plan includes 400 starter credits that do not refill, as of October 2026. Once they are spent, the only free way to add more is the referral program, which pays 200 credits per friend who signs up, up to a balance of 2,000 credits.
How much does Gamma Plus cost?
Plus lists at $12 per seat a month on monthly billing, or $9 per seat a month billed annually, which Gamma shows as $108 a year, as of October 2026. Twelve monthly payments come to $144, so the annual plan saves $36, or 25 percent.
What does Gamma Plus include that Free does not?
Plus adds 1,000 credits a month, raises the per-prompt limit from 10 slides to 100, removes Gamma branding from your decks, and unlocks advanced AI image models. Export to PDF, PPTX, PNG, and Google Slides is already included on Free, so the upgrade is about volume and branding rather than file formats.
Can you buy extra Gamma credits without subscribing?
Only on a paid plan. The Gamma help center lists top-ups at 1,500 credits for $6, sold in increments of 1,500, and the pricing page says paid users can purchase additional credits. Free plan users cannot buy credits, so the 400 starter credits are the whole allowance.
Do unused Gamma credits roll over to the next month?
Unused plan credits roll over up to double the plan size, so a Plus subscriber can hold up to 2,000 credits and a Pro subscriber up to 8,000, as of October 2026. Purchased credits do not count toward that cap and never expire while the subscription is active.
Sources
- Gamma plans and pricing — checked 2026-10-27
- Gamma Help Center: How do credits work in Gamma? — checked 2026-10-27
- Gamma Help Center: How do I purchase more credits? — checked 2026-10-27
Some links may be affiliate links. We may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
How this article was made: it was drafted with AI assistance from the official sources listed above, and its figures were checked against those pages on the dates shown. It is not based on personal hands-on testing.
Comments
Post a Comment