How TinyGuard counts AI usage
The TinyGuard AI assistant — daily reports, observation drafts, parent messages, care suggestions, incident narratives — is an optional $50/mo add-on you can turn on for any TinyGuard plan. When it's active you get 1,500 AI units a month. The AI assists your caregivers — it doesn't replace human observation or judgment, and its output may contain errors, so always verify with staff before relying on it. This page explains what an AI unit is, which features use them, and how the 1,500-unit monthly budget works in practice.
1. How AI is priced
AI isn't tied to your plan tier — it's a simple add-on. Turn it on for $50/mo on top of any TinyGuard subscription and you get 1,500 AI units every month. Turn it off anytime; your base plan keeps working exactly as before.
| Without the AI add-on | With the AI add-on (+$50/mo) | |
|---|---|---|
| AI features (reports, observations, messages, care suggestions, incident drafts) | Off — write manually | On |
| Monthly AI units | — | 1,500 |
| Everything else (cameras, EVV [elder], attendance, billing, parent portal) | Works normally | Works normally |
If the AI add-on isn't active, the AI-assisted drafting features show an "Add AI to your plan" prompt instead of generating. Camera monitoring, EVV (elder), attendance, billing, and manual report writing all work normally — only the AI drafting features wait on the add-on.
What the AI add-on does, feature by feature → · See full plan comparison →
2. What counts as an AI unit
One AI unit is consumed each time TinyGuard generates text on your behalf. Every AI-powered feature in the app counts exactly one unit per generation:
| Feature | Units per use | What it's doing |
|---|---|---|
| Daily report (per child or resident) | 1 | Turns staff notes into a 2-paragraph family-facing summary |
| Director / shift summary | 1 | Rolls up the day or shift into an operator-facing prose narrative |
| Observation draft | 1 | Turns staff free-form text into a developmental observation |
| Parent / family message draft | 1 | Drafts a friendly message for staff to review before sending |
| Incident report assist | 1 | Drafts a factual incident narrative from staff bullet points |
| Care suggestion (preschool, infant, elder) | 1 | Suggests next-step prompts based on care logs |
| Discharge / transition planning draft | 1 | Drafts a transition summary from the resident's record |
| Resident life-story draft | 1 | Renders staff's biographical entries into a family-readable bio |
| Support chat (in-app help) | 1 | One unit per question you send |
If a single feature run produces multiple separate outputs (rare — usually only the multi-resident daily-report rollup), each separate generation counts one unit. The app shows your running unit count on the Billing tab so you always know where you stand.
3. What an AI unit actually is (vs. tokens)
Cloud AI providers — Anthropic, OpenAI, Google — charge by tokens: sub-word fragments that vary by model and prompt length. A single daily report might consume 300 tokens on one model and 800 on another.
TinyGuard normalizes this into AI units so you get a predictable, feature-count budget instead of tracking raw token math. The conversion: 1 AI unit = $0.01 of platform AI cost, ceiling-rounded. A cheap call might cost 0.2¢ = 1 unit. An expensive multi-resident rollup might cost 4¢ = 4 units. Most individual generations land between 1–3 units.
If you bring your own API key (BYOK), those calls appear in your usage dashboard but don't count against your monthly unit budget — TinyGuard isn't paying for those tokens. BYOK is available on request — contact us.
4. What does NOT count
Most of what TinyGuard does isn't AI. None of these touch the unit meter:
- Cameras + video — live monitoring, recording, playback, family viewing.
- EVV (electronic visit verification) — clock-in, GPS verification, audit-export.
- Attendance + ratio — check-in, check-out, ratio compliance, staff scheduling.
- Billing, payments, payroll — Stripe, ACH, subscription management.
- Manual report writing — if a teacher writes the daily report herself, no unit is used. You only spend a unit when you ask AI to draft.
- Reading existing reports — parents reading their child's history, staff browsing logs, surveyors pulling exports.
- Search — finding a child's record, looking up a past incident, pulling a date range.
The platform's full operational stack works without AI. The unit meter only constrains the AI-assisted drafting features listed above.
5. What 1,500 units/month looks like
1,500 units works out to roughly 68 AI generations per business day across all staff — or one AI draft every 7 minutes during a 8-hour shift. Most facilities with the add-on use a fraction of this. The 1,500-unit ceiling exists as a cost backstop; in practice, no facility has come close to it.
Real-world usage shapes:
- Light AI use — director writes AI-assisted shift summaries daily, lead teacher uses AI once or twice a week for longer reports. ~80–120 units/mo. Well under the monthly budget.
- Moderate AI use — multiple teachers draft daily reports by AI, plus director summaries and a few incident drafts. ~300–600 units/mo. Comfortable headroom.
- Heavy AI use — every child gets an AI-drafted daily report every day, plus observation drafts across all rooms. A 30-child facility running this pattern uses ~700–900 units/mo. Still within the 1,500-unit budget. Multi-site operators running this at every location should contact us about a higher allowance.
6. What happens if you reach the monthly limit
Your TinyGuard platform keeps working completely normally — cameras, attendance, billing, parent portal, all previously-drafted reports, manual report writing, everything. The only thing that pauses is new AI generations. The meter resets automatically on the 1st of the next month.
The 80% warning (at 1,200 units) gives you a heads-up. If a staff member tries to use an AI feature after the cap, they'll see: "AI is paused until [reset date]. Your reports keep saving normally." The feature itself stays available — they can write the same report manually and save as usual.
In daily use at our founder's own licensed daycare we have not had a facility hit 1,500 units in a single month. If you do, contact us about a higher allowance for your scale.
7. Frequently asked
Does a re-generation count as a new unit?
Yes. If you regenerate a daily report because you didn't like the first draft, that's two units. The same is true if you re-prompt the support chat. The app shows the unit count update in real time so you can see the impact.
Do staff member units pool together or count per-user?
They pool at the facility level. All your staff share the same monthly budget. There's no per-staff cap — your director, lead teachers, and aides all draw from the same pool.
Do units roll over month to month?
No. Each month starts fresh at 0 on the 1st. Unused units don't carry over — steady-state use over the year is more predictable that way.
Can I see how many units each feature has used?
Yes — go to Billing → AI usage. The breakdown shows per-feature unit counts for the current month, plus a 12-month history once you've been on the platform that long.
Can I add AI to my plan?
Yes. Add the AI add-on ($50/mo) from Billing → Add-ons. It pro-rates from the day you switch it on, and you immediately get all AI features plus the full 1,500-unit monthly budget. Turn it off anytime — your base plan is unaffected.
What is BYOK?
BYOK (bring your own key) lets you supply your own Anthropic, OpenAI, or Google API key. Calls made with your key appear in usage logs for transparency but don't consume your monthly unit budget — you're paying the provider directly. BYOK is available on request — contact us.
8. Still have questions?
Text Del at (510) 686-3357 or email del@tinyguard.co. We're a 1-person team — questions get answered the same day.