Concern About Fair Usage Limits and Request for Detailed Credit Usage Information
in progress
Duccio Bandinelli
I am writing to express my disappointment regarding the fair usage limits applied to my account, which were not clearly communicated during the registration and purchase phase. Like several other users, for example, as mentioned in this feedback Merlin AI Pro Unlimited Plan Reality - 100 Monthly Cap, these limits do not feel like "fair" limits but rather sustainability limits that should have been clearly disclosed upfront.
Nevertheless, I acknowledge this condition and will decide soon whether to continue using the service or to suspend my subscription and consider alternative providers.
In the meantime, I would like to request a more detailed breakdown of the available credits on a daily and monthly basis, so I can better assess if the current plan fits my needs. It would be helpful to have clear, specific usage information such as: "You have used 700 credits out of 1000." Currently, the percentage progress bar shown in the "Account" section is not sufficiently clear.
Thank you for your attention to this matter. I look forward to your prompt response.
EDIT: I have exported the cURL request the application uses to retrieve the remaining quota for my user, so I am able to access this information independently. However, it is rather inconvenient and not accessible for those who are not programmers. Therefore, it would be "fair" to make this information publicly available to all users.
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Yume
(POV) With all due respect to everyone who's posted multiple threads like this, including me, where they get archived away, hidden truths/feedback from real users, they won't agree and will come up with some costs thing and why they need to make money and not really our allies in this. Also, asking for new features? Why? So that they can use up more credits. And throw around Fair Use language on us?
I (now) use Merlin for VERY BASIC stuff and (mostly) use Google AI in search now, which is FREE and actually has more robust search meaning the links searched is insane, research across the board, real time Google trends, etc.
IF I need to use a program to make a image or a video, or voice to tts... seriously, no way would I use Merlin, so my usage gets eaten??... I have other specific tools for that (DM me and I can tell you which ones I snagged for LTDs). But to make a swiss-army knife (full of features that ultimately contradicts with their daily use and fair use policy??) and then they "justify" why they limit the usage of their tools makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE to me. All this effort and work to drop new features so they can be put behind credit paywalls? That's the goal here. So I find that I am using less Merlin (which kudos for them, worked), and more Google AI and using Merlin when I need it has worked a lot.
I stopped asking them to do the right thing for all the feedback given, because the feedback is falling on tone deaf ears. POV: They just want to hear how awesome the product is and how great it is and all the nifty features that you pay credit usage for (which is also a limited time when paid). That's my take-away.
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cc
I find it ridiculous that I am a normal monthly membership subscriber without using promotional programs on other platforms, yet today I found out that a single message to Claude 4 sonnet is going to consume an average of 1.5% of the daily limit, and every third message is going to consume 1% of the monthly limit, which means a maximum of 66 messages per day or 300 messages per month. Isn't that ridiculous?
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Guy
Limits have DEFINITELY been lowered DRAMATICALLY.
I can barely do any queries, now, before I start hitting limits very quickly.
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Guy
I understand fair use limits, but the problem is Merlin changed them AFTER I signed up to a yearly plan.
I have already paid for a year of "unlimited"... which is now limited.
I reached out to support to get the limit removed for the year I already paid for, and they denied it. This is an egregious breach of contract.
I understand if you want to change limits in a future year, but not the year I paid for.
Jarrod Tanner
Guy This is the same issue I have had as well. It is extremely unfair that this change has affected people like us that have paid for a yearly plan just to have it extremely limited with no care in the world
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Yume
Guy Yup, same here. I was told Unlimited and that upgrading would be best. So fair enough I did, then they changed it. Not cool. Not nice. Not ethical.
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Yume
Guy there's a lot of "archived" threads on this... I noted it too. They quietly hush it away. This is sadly going to fall on deaf ears. They do nothing about it.
Felipe Rodriguez Fonte
Hello, I only use Merlin ai and I usually do it with magic. The reality is that without hardly any use I have seen how I have a consumption rate of 20%. The day I actually use it, I'm going to skip the ratio right away. They seem to me to be too tight limits, to be honest.
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herrkaschel
Pro and unlimited means all features and no caps by definition. I feel a bit scammed too after getting pro. It's still a good and evolving tool, but these artificial roadblocks are were not communicated clearly.
Duccio Bandinelli
herrkaschel Absolutely. Overall, I believe the limits have been reduced since I made my purchase. I used to have 5 deep research queries, but now I only have 2. My usage over the past few months has stayed the same, but it's only this month that I've started seeing the "limit approaching" alert. :(
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Simon
Duccio Bandinelli Exactly the same here. I was wondering 1-2 weeks ago that my 5 deep researchs were reduced to 2. But in the Into-text in the "lab" section they just wrote that they will increase that number.
It's a pity that merlinAI can't remain fair here and has repeatedly been intransparent. It is regrettable that apart from a “we are working to fix the pricing page” no response has been made to the customers concerned. Instead, the feedback on this is also closed - without a solution. What a pity!
And yes, the limits are far too tight!
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GT
This needs to be sorted asap and you should stop accepting new pro signups until it is fixed. You have misled users by implying "unlimited" subject to a fair use policy when you knowingly apply limits from day 1. I really can't see the point of pro anymore.
Vijay Bharadwaj
Thanks for understanding, Duccio. We're building an indicator, and it will be live soon. We apologize that things were not transparent, and a fix to our Pricing page and Plan details will be live soon too.
Felipe Rodriguez Fonte
Vijay Bharadwaj It's not just making the indicator clearer, it's just that it's too restrictive. I firmly believe that if we buy a pro/unlimited service, it is not acceptable not to be able to use the usual functions of chatgpt (I no longer mess with in-depth investigations, which is understandable).
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Yume
Vijay Bharadwaj Lol read the room. People just want what they paid for and what they were promised OVER A YEAR AGO, not when you all arbitrarily introduced the "fair usage" criteria that you decided to use to restrict PRO users after selling "unlimited usage"... Serious question: Have you actually gotten compliments from PRO users about the color indicator and pretty colors to show people how you restrict their usage?
Now, I just use a mix of Google AI and less of Merlin so I don't run out of gated credits now while waiting for my PRO "unlimited" limited plan to phase out. And go back to my LTD credits. "Fair usage".... Kudos to your team for the art of releasing new features then restrict the users from using them. Well played?
Vijay Bharadwaj
in progress