How teams work
A walk through a team from the inside: how to invite people, how the shared pool of credits is spent, what admins can and cannot see, and where to find what everyone made. Every picture below is a close-up of the real thing.
The pictures on this page show a made-up team called Northstar Studio, with made-up people and made-up numbers. Nothing here is anyone's real work.
Start a team
A team is a shared workspace with its own plan. The plan's monthly credits become one pool that everybody draws from, and you decide who can spend how much of it. Your personal account carries on exactly as before.
Go to Start a team and you name the team, pick its plan and say how many people need to make things. Teams run on Pro or Max. Your own seat as the owner is included, so a team of three means you plus two seats to buy.
If you already pay for a plan
Checkout asks you to choose, so nobody pays twice by accident:
- Keep your plan. It stays yours for your own projects, and the team gets its own plan and its own bill, with your company's name and tax ID on the invoices.
- Or make your plan the team's plan. There is no second plan to buy. The credits you have left this month become the team's pool, it renews on your usual date, and you pay only for the extra seats. Your own projects move to Free, and any credits you bought stay yours.
Invite your people
Invites live in Team settings, under the list of members. There are two kinds, and the difference matters.
- [email protected] Creator
- Invite link Viewer
- By email. You pick the role. Only that exact address can use the invite, and it lasts 14 days. Send it again and the old one is replaced.
- By link. Anyone with the link joins as a free Viewer, and the link lasts 7 days. Good for a client or a reviewer. The link is shown once, so copy it before you close the box; making a new one does not break the old one.
Invites to a paid role need a free seat. If every seat is taken, you are asked to add one before the invite goes out, so you always know what a new person costs before you commit.
Inviting someone straight from a project
Bringing in a freelancer for one job? You do not have to leave the project. Type their email into its share box and press Add. If they are not on the team yet, the box says so and offers to invite them right there.
- Type their email. Open the project's share box, type the address and press Add.
- Pick a role. Viewer is free, and the invite goes out at once. Creator is a paid seat, so if no seat is open you see what it costs first, and the invite goes out once you add the seat.
- They join from the email. They land in that project and see only the projects they are added to. To show them the rest of the team's work, turn off "Only sees projects they're added to" for them in Team settings.
Not an admin? Only admins can invite people to the team, so if you own the project (or "Editors can add people" is on), the box offers Ask an admin to add them instead. Your admins get an email and answer with one tap, and you hear back either way.
What the other person sees
- Team projects show up next to your own.
- Team projects use the team's credits.
- Your personal space stays yours.
Joining a team never touches someone's own plan, credits or projects. People can be in more than one team, and they switch between their personal space and each team from the profile menu.
Inside team projects, every creator and admin gets full paid access, the same as the team's plan, even if their own account is free.
The four roles
Everyone on a team has one of four roles. You can change anyone's role whenever you like, in Team settings.
| Role | Seat | What they can do |
|---|---|---|
| Owner | Included |
|
| Admin | Paid |
|
| Creator | Paid |
|
| Viewer | Free |
|
Inside a single project there is a second, smaller idea: people on it are either Editors or Viewers there. So a Creator on the team can still be just a Viewer on one particular project.
One shared pool of credits
The team's plan gives it credits every month, and every seat you add brings bonus credits along with it. They all land in one pool. When somebody makes something in a team project, the cost comes out of that pool, not out of their own credits.
Need more each month? In Team settings, an admin picks Upgrade to Max next to the plan's name and sees the exact price first. It usually happens at once: you pay the difference between the two plans for this billing period, and the pool gets Max's credits right away. Moving back down to Pro waits for the next renewal.
The project decides who pays. Work in a team project and the team pays. Work in your own project and you pay. The two never mix, and nothing is ever taken from someone's personal credits for team work.
Asking for more
Hit your limit and nothing is lost: your prompt is kept and the counter offers to ask for more. Admins get an email and answer with one tap.
If a generation fails, its credits go straight back to the pool, exactly as on a personal account.
Limits, pausing and privacy
Open anyone in Team settings and you get their limit and three switches. Only admins can change them. Everyone can see how their own are set.
- A monthly limit caps what one person can spend from the pool each month. There is also a team default, which every new member starts on.
- Private keeps that person's pictures and clips out of the team reports. Their credit numbers still show, so billing still works. One thing to know: inside a project you share with them, their work is visible like anyone else's, because that is the project everybody is working in together.
- Only sees projects they're added to stops someone being shown every team project automatically. Made for freelancers and contractors who should see one job and not the rest.
- Pause spending stops new work immediately while leaving everything else alone: they can still open projects and download. Useful between jobs.
Projects: yours and the team's
Every project is either yours or the team's, and that single fact decides who pays for the work in it and who can see it. A team project says so at the top of its share box.
Moving one of your projects to the team
Any creator or admin can hand their own project over, with Move to Northstar Studio in its menu. From then on the team pays for new work in it, its admins can see and manage it, and it stays with the team if you leave. What was made before stays paid the way it was paid.
Working together
Team projects sit next to your own, and you switch between your personal space and each of your teams from the profile menu. Inside a team project you see everybody's work by default, which is the point of working in one.
See where the credits went
Admins get an Activity view in Team settings: a grid of people against days. Pick a range of Today, 7 days, this billing cycle, or any custom stretch up to about three months, and filter it by person, project or tool.
| Person | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maya | 210 | 0 | 145 | 60 | 0 | 415 |
| Leo | 0 | 320 | 90 | 0 | 180 | 590 |
| Sam | 480 | 260 | 640 | 30 | 0 | 1,410 |
| Nia Private | 120 | 75 | 0 | 240 | 95 | 530 |
Open a day for somebody who is set to Private and you get the numbers without the pictures:
Billing a client
Under the grid, the same range is broken down by project. Export CSV gives you one row per day, person, project and tool, which drops straight into a spreadsheet or an invoice.
| Project | Credits | Generations | Top tool |
|---|---|---|---|
| Autumn Lookbook | 1,240 | 38 | Text to Image |
| Reel Edits | 980 | 14 | Text to Video |
| Client Pitch | 725 | 22 | Text to Image |
What admins can and cannot see
Worth being plain about, because people ask:
- Admins see every team project and everything made in it, along with credits and generations per person, day, project and tool.
- Admins never see anything in anyone's personal space. Your own projects, your own credits and your own library stay yours alone, and no setting on the team changes that.
- Private keeps a member's pictures and clips out of these reports, though the people on a project with them still see what gets made there.
- Nothing here is a timesheet. It shows real activity, never guessed hours.
Members do not see each other's credit numbers. Inside a project you can see what a teammate made, but not what it cost them. Those figures are for admins only.
The team's history
Every change to the team is written down as a plain sentence: who joined, who left, who changed a role or a limit, who moved a project in. It is the answer to "when did this change, and who changed it".
- Maya set Sam's limit to 2,000
- Nia accepted their invite
- Leo made Nia private
- Leo moved Reel Edits into the team
- Maya added Ava as viewer
Leaving and removing people
When somebody leaves, or is removed, their team work stays with the team. Projects they owned pass to an admin, so nothing is lost and nobody has to go hunting. Their personal account is not touched at all.
- Leaving yourself. From the team's menu. You are told first which of your projects will pass on, and to whom.
- Removing somebody. An admin removes them in Team settings. Their seat is then free for the next person, so a swap costs nothing extra.
- The owner. The owner cannot simply leave, because the owner is the one paying. Hand the team to an admin first.
Removing a seat from the plan is separate from removing a person. A seat comes off your next bill and keeps working until then, so nobody is cut off in the middle of a job.
Questions people ask
How-to questions here. For what a team costs, what a seat buys and how the plans compare, see Plans and pricing.
How do I add someone?
Team settings, then Invite people. Type their email, pick the role, send. For somebody who only needs to look, use the invite link instead: it brings people in as free Viewers and you can hand it to a whole group at once. For one project only, type their email into that project's share box and invite them from there.
Somebody did not get their invite. What now?
Send it again from Open invites, which replaces the old one and keeps the same seat. Ask them to check their spam folder too. An emailed invite only works for the exact address it was sent to, so if they have two addresses, make sure they are signed in with the invited one.
Can I stop one person spending without removing them?
Yes. Turn on Pause spending for them. They keep their place on the team and can still open and download everything, they just cannot start anything new until you turn it back on.
Where do I see what a teammate made?
Two places, and which one you want depends on how much you need to see.
- One project at a time. Open a team project you can both see, then set the Made by filter to Anyone, or to that person by name. This only changes what the list shows you. It does not open anything you could not already open.
- The whole team, day by day. In Team settings, open Activity and click anybody's square in the grid to see what they made that day. This one is for admins and the owner.
Which team projects can I open?
Any one of these is enough on its own:
- You made it.
- Somebody added you to it by name.
- It is shared with everyone at the team, and you do not have "Only sees projects they're added to" turned on.
- You are an admin or the owner. Admins can open every project the team has, including the ones set to "Only people I add".
I cannot find a team project.
Nine times out of ten it is the space you are in, not the project. Check these in order:
- Which space you are in. Click your avatar, and under Spaces you will see Personal at the top with your teams under it, a tick on the one you are in now. Click the team. Its projects only show while you are in its space.
- The project list. With the team open, use the project menu in the top bar and look for the project by name.
- Whether you were added. If it is still not there, the project is probably set to "Only people I add" and you are not one of them yet. Ask an admin to add you, or to share it with everyone at the team.
How do I work out what to bill a client?
In Activity, set the range, then read the by-project table underneath the grid. Export CSV if you want it in a spreadsheet: one row per day, person, project and tool.
How do I move a project I already made into the team?
Open the project's share box and choose Move to the team. From then on the team pays for new work in it and its admins can see it. Anything made before stays billed the way it was. Do check it first: taking a project back out is not something you can do yourself yet.
Does my teammate need to buy a plan?
No. A free account is all anybody needs. In team projects they get full paid-level access to everything, the same as the team's plan, and create with the team's credits. If they already pay for a plan of their own, that stays theirs for their own projects.
Can the team use my personal credits, or the other way round?
Never, in either direction. The project decides who pays: a team project always draws on the team's pool, your own projects always draw on yours.
The team ran out of credits in the middle of the month.
An admin tops it up: open Team settings and press Add credits. The credits land straight in the pool, everyone can carry on at once, and nothing anybody typed is lost. Credits bought this way never expire, and you can switch on Auto top-up so the team never stops in the first place.
Who pays when I buy credits for the team?
The team does, on the card that already pays for its plan, and the credits go to the team's pool. Buying from your own Credits page is the opposite: that is your own account, and the two never mix. Only the owner and admins can put a charge on the team.
I set a limit but it is not stopping anybody.
A limit only covers team credits. If the person is working in their own project, they are spending their own credits and the team has no say in it. Check the project is a team project: it says "Made with the team's credits" at the top of its share box.
Can a freelancer see only the one job I hired them for?
Yes. Type their email into that project's share box and invite them from there: they join seeing that project and nothing else. Someone already on the team works the same way once you turn on "Only sees projects they're added to" for them and add them to that project alone.
Will my teammates see my own private projects?
No. Your personal space is yours: your projects, your credits and your library. Admins cannot see into it, and nothing you do on the team changes that.
Can I share an uploaded file with my team?
Not directly yet. Uploads and the Shelf are still per person, even inside a team project, so pass a file along by downloading it and uploading it on the other side. A shared team Shelf is something we are building.
How do I switch between my own space and the team?
From the profile menu, under Spaces. Your personal space is at the top and each of your teams is under it, with the one you are in ticked. You can be on several teams at once.
Who can see the team's billing?
The owner, whose card pays for it. Admins run the team day to day and can add or remove seats, but the bill and the plan belong to the owner. The owner can hand the whole team to an admin, who then takes it over with their own card.
Still stuck?
Write to us and a person will read it. Tell us your team's name and what you were trying to do, and we will sort it out.