Apple now sells $50 AI top-ups for Logic Pro, and won’t say how much you get

Apple is now selling extra artificial intelligence by the pack. Creator Studio subscribers who use up the monthly allowance of Logic Pro’s built-in AI assistant can buy an Intelligence Usage Pack to keep going, and Apple does not say how much extra assistant time the purchase actually buys.

It is the first time Apple has put a price on running out of Apple Intelligence. Until now, an Apple AI feature either came free with the device or sat inside a subscription. The packs add a third layer that anyone who pays for a cloud chatbot will recognize: a capped allowance first, then a paid top-up once the cap is hit.

Each pack is a one-time purchase of $49.99. The option sits in Logic Pro’s menu bar, under Intelligence Features, then Show Usage, then Buy More Usage. Purchased credit is only drawn on after the monthly allowance runs out. Unused credit rolls over from month to month, and whatever is left expires 12 months after purchase. A pack also belongs to the single Apple Account that bought it. Family Sharing is not supported, even though the Creator Studio subscription itself can be shared with up to six family members.

The meter exists because the assistant runs in the cloud. Apple’s support page says the Logic Pro assistant is powered by Google Gemini, and Apple’s own announcement describes a mix of Apple-built and third-party models. For this assistant Apple sets no fixed monthly number at all: the limit is “impacted by the complexity of conversations you have with the assistant.” Other Creator Studio features at least come with a stated floor. If used exclusively, a subscriber can generate at least 50 images, 250 shapes, 50 presentations of roughly eight to ten slides, or presenter notes for 700 slides each month.

The price is not small next to what it extends. In the US, Creator Studio costs $12.99 a month or $129 a year, so one pack costs almost as much as four months of the whole suite. It is also a quarter of the $199.99 that Apple charges for a permanent Logic Pro license on the Mac App Store.

The terms are the weakest part of the offer. Apple’s usage pack agreement says the amount of credit needed for a given feature or output can vary over time and between apps, and that Apple “does not guarantee that a specific amount of the Usage Packs will result in the same output, or any particular output.” The balance shown in the apps “is an approximation and may not accurately reflect actual usage.” All sales are final, with no refunds except where the law requires them. In practice, the buyer pays a fixed price for a variable amount of AI, measured only by the seller.

Availability is narrow too. The packs can be bought only by Creator Studio subscribers in Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States. The Logic Pro assistant itself needs a Mac with Apple silicon running macOS 27, and it works only in US English. Subscribers in Spain, Italy, Japan, Korea and most other markets cannot buy extra usage at all for now.

Logic Pro is unlikely to stay alone. The usage pack terms already list Final Cut Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Motion, Compressor, MainStage, Keynote, Pages, Numbers and Freeform as covered apps, and 9to5Mac and The Verge both expect the Buy More Usage option to reach Final Cut Pro, Pixelmator Pro and the iWork apps when Apple’s Creator Studio update, announced on October 27, rolls out this November.

A support note Apple published on September 9 goes further. Starting with the 2027 software releases, it says, Siri AI, Clean Up, Image Playground and other server-based features will get usage limits too, and “increased access to such features will be available for a fee.” Logic Pro is where Apple tests the meter. The support page already names Siri as the next one.

Tags: artificial intelligence, Apple, Apple Intelligence, AI pricing, Google Gemini, Apple Creator Studio