Great questions — here is the full picture.

Wallet is a prepaid balance. You top it up manually, and every AI call draws down the exact cost of that request. There is no recurring charge and no expiry; the balance sits there until you use it.

Subscription is a recurring plan that includes a period-bound usage allowance — think of it as a pre-loaded bucket that refills each billing cycle. When the allowance is exhausted, usage automatically falls back to your wallet balance if you have one, so nothing stops working mid-month.

Free session budget is a third, separate layer. The Free tier gives you a small recurring budget that refills throughout the day. When that runs out, the system draws from your wallet or subscription allowance in order.

Premium feature gates work on funding, not on a rigid tier flag. If you have wallet balance or an active subscription allowance, you can access higher-end models, extended context, or reasoning effort. The gate asks "do you have funds?" not "which tier are you on?" — so a well-funded wallet grants the same access as a subscription, and cost is always drawn from whichever source is available.

You do not need both, but using both is fine. A subscription makes sense if your usage is predictable and you want the included allowance; a wallet works well for sporadic or burst usage. See /pricing for current plan details and limits.