Fair use
We have a fair-use policy. For most people, our weekly fair-use allowance is sufficient, even when you use Sigmund extensively.
At the bottom of the page, a usage indicator shows how much you have used Sigmund over the last 7 days. When your usage exceeds our fair-use limit (calculated over 7 days), you can buy extra credits to continue using Sigmund.
In addition to the weekly fair-use limit, there is an hourly limit. This is a way to protect against run-away conversations, such as when Sigmund gets stuck in a feedback loop. If this happens, you have to wait for at most an hour until you can use Sigmund again.
How to keep your usage under control:
- Ask specific questions and provide sufficient context. Vague questions are hard to answer, also for Sigmund. As a result, Sigmund may start using many tools to better understand the context. For example, Sigmund may open many items in OpenSesame, inspect many files in Sigmund Analyst, or perform many searches on OpenAlex. This consumes many usage tokens and is often unnecessary. To avoid this, formulate clear questions that provide all or most of the context Sigmund needs.
- Use a cost-efficient model. The model-selection menu shows how many credits all AI model consume relative to each other. There are large differences between models. Typically, more expensive models perform slightly better; however, the difference in performance is often small. Currently, the most cost-effective model is Z.ai GLM-5.2. It is recommended for most tasks, including complex ones.