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Plans, caps & credits explained

6 min read · Updated 2026-09-05

“Plans, caps & credits explained” is a Direct University lesson from Direct REI, the AI cold-outreach platform and CRM for real estate investors. What each plan includes, which actions count against monthly caps, and how prepaid credits work.

Direct REI has three paid plans plus a limited Free tier. Here's exactly what you get and what it costs to go past it. (Always confirm current pricing on the Billing page — this is a guide.)

The plans

What each paid plan includes

Starter: 1 mailbox · 1 SMS number · 25 campaigns · 250 AI replies/mo · 100 AI-researched contacts/mo · 25 AI sequence messages/mo · 5,000 CRM contacts.

Pro: 10 mailboxes · 5 SMS numbers · 100 campaigns · 1,000 AI replies/mo · 500 AI-researched contacts/mo · 100 AI sequence messages/mo · 25,000 CRM contacts · +2 team seats.

Scale: unlimited mailboxes, SMS numbers, and campaigns · 5,000 AI replies/mo · 2,500 AI-researched contacts/mo · 400 AI sequence messages/mo · unlimited CRM contacts · unlimited team seats.

Paid-only features (any tier): Analytics, Custom fields, Dialer auto-advance, and AI lead research / sequence generation / AI replies. Team seats need Pro or Scale.

Websites: every plan can publish hosted property websites (see Websites: launch a property site that feeds your CRM). Starter includes your first published site; Pro and Scale include unlimited sites; past your allowance each published site is $9/mo — billed to your card on file, falling back to your prepaid credit balance.

Mailbox & SMS-number rotation needs Pro or higher. Starter is single-mailbox, single-number — perfectly fine to start, but you can't rotate until you upgrade.

How the monthly caps work

The metered counters — AI replies, AI-researched contacts, AI sequence messages, AI Research searches — reset on the 1st of each month. You can watch them under Settings → Billing (the Plan & Usage section). Storage caps (CRM contacts) and connection caps (mailboxes, numbers, campaigns) are ceilings, not monthly counters.

AI sequence generation is metered per message. When you hit Generate with AI, each message box it writes counts as one against your monthly AI-sequence allowance — so a 4-message sequence uses 4, a 10-message sequence uses 10. Longer cadences (and regenerating) eat the cap faster; writing or editing messages by hand is always free.

Two kinds of credits — don't mix them up

1. Overage & mail credits — your prepaid dollar balance, spent on direct-mail sends, e-signature documents, and any usage past a monthly cap. Per-action rates:

Manually-added and imported contacts are free — they never touch credits. If you run out of credits, that action pauses until you top up. Buy them at Settings → Billing → Buy credits.

2. Skip-trace credits — a completely separate currency used only for skip tracing (1 credit per record). See Skip tracing: find phones & emails from an address.

Both kinds of credits never expire.

Upgrade vs. buy credits

Credits are for occasional overflow. If you're regularly blowing through a cap, upgrading a tier is almost always cheaper than paying per-action. Change plans anytime via Manage billing (the Stripe Customer Portal) — switches prorate immediately, so you're only charged the difference.

What's next

To get more out of every send before you ever hit a cap, revisit Writing sequences that get replies and Reading your Analytics dashboard.

This lesson lives in Direct University inside the Direct REI app, where you can search every lesson and ask the built-in AI assistant. Sign in to open it there.

Related lessons

Skip tracing: find phones & emails from an addressTurn a name + mailing address into the owner’s phone and email. Credits, the confirm flow, and when to use it.Outreach Tips · 5 min read Writing sequences that get repliesWhat the AI does well, what to override, and the structure of a cadence that converts.Outreach Tips · 9 min read Websites: launch a property site that feeds your CRMPublish a real website straight from your CRM — a listings site with photos, maps, and filters, or a "we buy land" lead-capture site. Every form submission lands in your CRM as a lead.Best Practices · 7 min read
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About Direct REIDirect REI is an AI cold-outreach platform and CRM for real estate investors — wholesalers, flippers, builders, land investors, and brokers. Its AI acquisition manager, Oliver, pulls county property records, finds owners, and runs email, SMS, direct mail, and inbound-call tracking from your own mailbox and phone number, replying in your voice. Free plan; paid plans from $23/month billed annually ($29 monthly).

Start free — let Oliver run the outreach.

Free plan, no card. Oliver finds the leads and runs email, SMS, and mail from your own accounts.

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