Research tokens and your daily allowance
What research tokens pay for, what a run costs, when your daily allowance resets, and how purchased tokens work.
Research tokens and your daily allowance
Research tokens are credits for metered work in NexusTrade: Aurora's AI responses, paid backtests, optimization and other research. Paid plans give you a daily allowance; token packs add a separate balance when you need more.
One research token is not one question or one completed strategy. A short answer and a multi-step investigation do different amounts of work. Research tokens are also different from the text tokens an AI model reads and writes.
How much do tokens cost?
| Research tokens |
Pack price |
Price per token |
| 100 |
$10.00 |
$0.10 |
| 500 |
$40.00 |
$0.08 |
| 1,000 |
$50.00 |
$0.05 |
Packs are one-time purchases, bought in full. Purchased tokens have no scheduled expiry. Your plan's daily allowance is included in the subscription price: using that available allowance does not add a separate token purchase.
At the 1,000-token pack's rate, 50 tokens are worth $2.50 of purchased credits. The minimum pack purchase is $10; you do not check out for $2.50 each time you do research. View token packs on Pricing.
Explore a token budget
Enter the token usage quoted or recorded for your work to compare its purchased-credit value with your plan's daily allowance. The calculator assumes the full daily allowance is unused; your actual available balance determines which credits you spend. It does not predict how many tokens Aurora will use.
What spends tokens?
Aurora AI
AI usage depends on the chosen model, the context it reads, and the answer it writes. A multi-step investigation can use several AI calls and paid tools.
Daily stock and ETF backtests
The backtest itself costs no research tokens. Asking Aurora to create or analyze it still uses AI credits.
Minute-level and options backtests
Cost depends on the date range, interval, asset workload and whether detailed events are requested. Eligible quicktests of up to 90 calendar days have no backtest-token charge. Your plan or research session must still support the requested features.
Optimization and walk-forward studies
Each study evaluates multiple candidates or windows. More evaluations and heavier workloads cost more. Optimizations have a minimum charge of 2 tokens.
Building a strategy manually does not spend Aurora credits. Subscription feature limits, brokerage charges and trading fees are separate from research-token usage.
What does a run cost? A concrete example
Consider a 120-calendar-day, minute-level stock backtest with one stock and no additional asset references. Its workload uses the minimum asset factor of 0.15:
120 days × 0.125 tokens per day × 0.15 = 2.25 research tokens.
Requesting detailed events for that minute-level test multiplies its charge by 5, bringing it to 11.25 tokens. Daily options tests use their own rate; this event multiplier applies to minute-level tests.
This example is the backtest charge only. A wider asset universe can increase its workload factor, and Aurora's AI work is charged separately. There is no fixed token price for an entire Aurora research run: it depends on the models, conversation length, tools and tests used.
Your plan's daily allowance
| Plan |
Daily Research Tokens |
| Observer (Free) |
0 |
| Data-Driven Investor |
1,000 |
| Algorithmic Trader |
3,000 |
| Unstoppable Quant |
6,000 |
Weekly, monthly and annual billing change how often you pay for the plan. The allowance is daily in all three cases. Buying an annual plan does not put a year's tokens in your balance at once.
Observer has no included daily subscription allowance. A free account can still hold earned or purchased tokens. Buying a token pack does not change your subscription tier or automatically unlock every paid feature; the available research sessions and plan options are shown on Pricing.
When does the allowance reset?
The daily allowance follows New York time (Eastern Time, including daylight saving time). Today's allowance is credited when your account checks its daily reward or starts eligible AI work. You do not bank allowances for days you did not use the product.
Daily subscription tokens normally expire at the end of that New York calendar day. If today's grant happens after 11 p.m., it lasts through the end of the following day so it does not disappear moments after you sign in. Your balance display includes an expiry indicator for expiring credits.
Unused daily allowance does not accumulate indefinitely. Purchased token packs have no scheduled expiry. Earned or promotional credits can have their own expiry dates, so they are not all governed by the daily allowance's deadline.
Which balance gets spent first?
NexusTrade uses expiring credits first, starting with the earliest expiry, before purchased tokens. If you have daily allowance left, you generally spend that before drawing down your purchased balance.
For example, suppose you have 20 daily tokens and 100 purchased tokens. A completed action charged at 8 tokens uses the daily balance first, leaving 12 daily tokens and 100 purchased tokens. When those 12 daily tokens expire, your purchased balance remains available.
Where to check costs and usage
- Check the research-token balance in the app header before starting work. It includes your available, unexpired credits.
- Choose your AI model in Aurora's settings. Larger context, longer responses and multiple research steps can change the AI charge.
- Review the displayed token cost before submitting a paid backtest or optimization. The exact saved rules, dates and settings determine that quote.
- For multi-step Aurora research, ask it to explain the proposed work and review paid launches before approving them. A tool's price and the AI conversation's usage are separate parts of the total.
An estimate is not a promise that every investigation costs the same amount. Start with a bounded question and short test window, then decide whether a longer study is worth its displayed cost.
What happens if I run out?
A paid action that cannot be funded may be blocked until you have enough tokens. You can wait for the next daily allowance, reduce the research workload, buy a token pack, or choose a plan with a larger daily allowance. Research already performed can still incur its charge, so a longer AI operation may leave an amount to settle against later credits.
You can continue to use features that do not require research tokens, within your plan's limits.
Add tokens without changing your plan
Token packs are one-time purchases:
See the current pack prices at the top of this guide.
Purchased credits do not expire on the daily reset. Open Pricing and choose View token packs to see the purchase options. A pack adds research credits; it is separate from changing your plan, choosing its weekly/monthly/annual billing, or subscribing to another creator's portfolio.
Compare plans · Learn how Aurora works · Open pricing