Let’s talk about pricing transparency.
If you build apps on standard platforms today, you probably receive a bill denominated in "credits" or "compute tokens." You buy a bundle of 10,000 credits for $20, but what does a credit actually buy?
The Credit Conversion Casino
Here is a typical breakdown of how credits are burned by traditional CI/CD platforms depending on what you build:
- Linux Standard Runner: 1 credit / minute
- Linux Large Runner: 2 credits / minute
- macOS Standard (Intel): 4 credits / minute
- macOS Premium (M1): 12 credits / minute
- macOS Large (M2): 24 credits / minute
If your iOS build takes 15 minutes on a premium M2 Mac runner, it burns 360 credits per build. Run that build 30 times a month, and you've burned 10,800 credits.
If your teammate runs a test pipeline that compiles on Linux but runs simulated devices, the conversion rate shifts again. You end up having to write spreadsheets just to forecast if you can afford to run tests before merging code.
Why Credit Math Kills Flow State
When you tie pipeline runs to complicated per-minute token math, engineers start making compromises:
- Skipping PR Tests: Developers skip running automated linting or unit tests on every commit to save their monthly credit budget.
- Delayed Compilations: Waiting until the end of the day to trigger a build, stalling reviews and delaying product releases.
- Budget anxiety: Spending time checking usage reports rather than focusing on shipping code.
The Venelx Philosophy: Flat Billing
We believe developers should never have to calculate credit coefficients.
Venelx charges a single, flat monthly fee. You know exactly what you pay on the first day of the month, and your bill will be exactly the same on the last day of the month.
By removing the per-minute credit ledger, we align ourselves with your goals: helping you build and ship code as frequently as possible, without checking a dashboard meter.