I signed up for the pro account today. I added an additional $15 dollars in credits when the “You have exceeded your Pro GPU quota” message popped up. The message said the additional credits would kick in whenever I exceeded my daily usage. I confirmed the credits are on the billing page. Is there something I need to do to activate the credits? Thanks!
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We need a little more information to determine whether that is some kind of misunderstanding or an error on the HF side…
Most likely cause
You were probably using a ZeroGPU Space, while the extra money you added was going into Inference Providers billing, which is a different product bucket. Hugging Face’s docs say purchased credits and pay-as-you-go apply to Inference Providers when requests are routed through Hugging Face, while ZeroGPU has its own daily quota system. Public HF docs do not describe bought credits as a way to extend ZeroGPU daily minutes. (Hugging Face)
In plain terms, “I have PRO and extra credits” does not automatically mean “this ZeroGPU Space can keep running after I hit the daily ZeroGPU limit.” For ZeroGPU, the current documented quota is 25 minutes per day for PRO, and it resets exactly 24 hours after your first GPU usage, not at midnight. (Hugging Face)
Why this is confusing
HF sells several things that look similar from the user side but are enforced differently underneath:
- PRO increases your ZeroGPU quota and queue priority.
- Inference Providers credits are monthly credits plus pay-as-you-go for routed inference.
- Spaces compute is a separate compute service category in billing. (Hugging Face)
So if you saw wording that made it sound like extra credits would “kick in” after daily GPU usage, that wording is at least misleading for ZeroGPU use, because the public docs describe credits for Inference Providers and quotas for ZeroGPU as separate mechanisms. I cannot prove from the public docs whether that was a UI bug, stale copy, or context-specific message, but the documentation does not support “credits extend ZeroGPU daily quota.” (Hugging Face)
Second most likely cause
Your request may not have been recognized as coming from your logged-in PRO identity. HF’s Spaces API docs say authenticated requests consume your account’s ZeroGPU quota, while unauthenticated requests use a stricter shared pool. The docs list the current ZeroGPU daily quotas as 2 minutes unauthenticated, 3.5 minutes free, and 25 minutes PRO. (Hugging Face)
This matters because ZeroGPU rate limiting is tied to request identity. Gradio’s ZeroGPU client docs explain that requests missing the X-IP-Token header are treated as unauthenticated. HF’s Spaces API docs also show that when one app calls another ZeroGPU Space, you may need to forward the user’s auth context, including x-ip-token. (Gradio)
That is why these cases often fail even for PRO users:
- opening the raw
.hf.spacelink instead of the Space’s Hub page, - using incognito,
- using strict cookie or privacy settings,
- calling the Space through an API client or proxy without proper auth forwarding,
- calling a ZeroGPU Space from another Space without forwarding the identity token. (Hugging Face Forums)
Third likely cause
The specific Space may simply be expensive per run. ZeroGPU Spaces can request longer runtimes with @spaces.GPU(duration=...), and xlarge uses 2× the daily quota of large. The default runtime window is 60 seconds, but a Space can ask for more. That means a run can be rejected even when you still have some quota left, because the Space is asking for more seconds than you have remaining. (Hugging Face)
So one Space can fail fast while another still works, even on the same account. That is not necessarily a platform bug. It can just be the Space’s runtime settings and GPU size. (Hugging Face)
Real bugs and HF-side issues also exist
There have been genuine platform-side problems. HF staff stated in March 2025 that they had changed how ZeroGPU quotas work and that some PRO users were negatively impacted. There are also reports from 2025 and 2026 where users had active PRO status and visible quota on the billing page but still got 0s left or wrong quota behavior across multiple Spaces. (Hugging Face Forums)
There was also a documented bug where ZeroGPU + non-SSR apps could fall back to IP-based quotas, which would ignore logged-in PRO quotas. HF staff said that was fixed by upgrading Gradio. So some cases are not user error and not billing confusion. They are app-side or platform-side auth bugs. (Hugging Face)
My best diagnosis for a case like yours
If the pattern is “I got PRO, added extra credits, and still immediately saw a Pro GPU quota error on a Space,” then my ranking is:
- Most likely: credits were added to the wrong billing bucket for this use case. ZeroGPU quota was still the actual limiter. (Hugging Face)
- Next: the Space request was treated as guest or IP-based instead of PRO-authenticated. (Hugging Face)
- Then: the Space itself requests more time or more expensive GPU usage than your remaining quota allows. (Hugging Face)
- Also possible: your account quota state was out of sync on HF’s side. (Hugging Face Forums)
- Less likely unless it is one Space only: the Space is outdated or misconfigured. (Hugging Face)
What to do
If you are just using someone else’s Space
Open the Space from its Hub page while logged in, not from the raw .hf.space subdomain. Avoid incognito. Temporarily disable aggressive cookie or tracking blockers for that test. Community reports show .hf.space direct access and incognito can behave like unauthenticated use. (Hugging Face Forums)
Then test two or three unrelated ZeroGPU Spaces. If only one fails, suspect that specific Space’s runtime settings or app bug. If all ZeroGPU Spaces fail while your billing page shows PRO status and remaining minutes, suspect an HF-side quota sync issue or auth attribution problem. (Hugging Face Forums)
Also, do not rely on purchased credits to extend ZeroGPU minutes. If you need more runtime than the daily ZeroGPU pool allows, the clean alternatives are:
- use Inference Providers directly for pay-as-you-go inference,
- or use a paid GPU Space instead of ZeroGPU. HF documents those as separate compute/billing paths. (Hugging Face)
If you own the Space or call it programmatically
Make sure the actual inference call is authenticated, not just your account check elsewhere. HF’s Spaces API docs show using Authorization: Bearer ... for Space calls, and Gradio’s docs explain why missing request identity causes fallback to unauthenticated rate limits. (Hugging Face)
If your app calls another ZeroGPU Space, forward x-ip-token. If you use an older Gradio setup, upgrade it. HF staff explicitly linked a real ZeroGPU auth bug to older app behavior and said upgrading Gradio restores logged-in quotas instead of IP-based fallback. (Gradio)
If the Space is expensive, reduce duration where possible and avoid size="xlarge" unless it is truly needed. Shorter durations improve queue behavior, and xlarge burns quota twice as fast. (Hugging Face)
The short conclusion
My strongest guess is not “the credits failed to activate.” It is:
- you hit a ZeroGPU quota that extra credits do not extend, or
- the request was not being counted under your PRO identity. (Hugging Face)
A real HF-side bug is also possible, but I would move that higher only if you are logged in correctly, opening Spaces from the Hub page, and multiple unrelated ZeroGPU Spaces still instantly report 0s left or similar nonsense. (Hugging Face Forums)
This is the pop-up window that clearly states that by buying credits it will extend my ZeroGPU quota when my daily quota runs out:
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Oh… This is the first time I’ve seen this pop-up…
This is clearly a contradiction between the documentation and the pop-up, at the very least. Since the pop-up is likely updated first, it is correct (as intended by HF).
In other words, unless it’s a browser-specific issue (like cookie settings), this is probably a bug in HF in the broad sense. And a serious one at that. @meganariley @michellehbn @hysts
Hi @AndyCoin11 and @John6666 !
Indeed, this is a very new feature on the Hugging Face Hub, and we’re in the process of updating the documentation to surface it.
There was a brief period of time where users were prompted to buy credits, but those credits could not apply to extend ZeroGPU quota.
That issue has been fixed and purchasing credits should allow you to use ZeroGPU Spaces over your included quota now.
Let us know if you have any additional issues!
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I see. Thank you, sbrandeis!