ShakeTheSpear may expose multiple providers—commonly OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google—each with different price, speed, and strengths. Your administrator enables which models appear. Credits (when used) meter AI-heavy operations so teams can forecast cost.
What tends to consume credits
Long outputs: full scripts, large rewrites, multi-section generations.
Strong models: higher-quality models usually cost more per token.
Tight loops: twenty small edits add up—batch edits when possible.
Retries with huge context: pasting entire libraries into one prompt burns tokens fast.
Check your balance or usage indicators before a big session. If your deployment does not show credits, you may still have fair-use limits—ask your admin.
Model choice: practical defaults
Use a fast, economical model for outlines, bullet expansions, title variants, and “say this three different ways” tasks. Use a stronger model when you need nuanced tone, careful restructuring, or fixing a draft that keeps misunderstanding constraints.
Outline pass: cheaper model + strict outline input.
Draft sections: mid-tier or strong model depending on complexity.
Line edits: often cheapest model with explicit before/after examples.
Prompt discipline that saves credits
Attach only the section of script you are editing—not the whole project.
Reference your preset and rules by name instead of re-pasting long style guides.
Ask for one change at a time: “Rewrite paragraph 2 for clarity” beats “fix everything.”
Stop after a good-enough version; perfection loops are expensive.
When output is weak
Before switching models, fix context: tighten the outline, remove conflicting rules, add a two-sentence example of your voice, or shorten the ask. Most “dumb model” moments are ambiguous instructions. If tone is fine but facts are wrong, fix facts manually—models should not invent citations.
If generations feel generic, the first lever is your niche sentence and preset examples—not maxing out model size.
Teams and admins
Organizations may route certain models to certain workflows or cap expensive ones. If you need access for a justified workflow, document the use case (for example: legal review of disclaimers) and request a policy change through your admin.