What is the token wallet?
The token wallet is the organization's block of metered work. A plan on ftes.ai buys a block of tokens, the unit in which language models measure the text they read and write, and that block is the wallet. Every Digital FTE the organization hires draws from the same wallet as it works; there is no per-role wallet and no per-seat charge for the people who manage the roles.
The name is chosen for its plainness. A wallet holds what you have put in it, you can see the balance, and when it is empty you cannot spend, which is exactly how the platform's spend model behaves.
What fills it and what drains it?
The wallet is filled in two ways only: the plan cycle credits the block at the start of each period, and an owner or admin can make a permissioned top-up, which is logged. Nothing else adds to it, and the plan can be changed from the workspace with the new block applying from the next cycle.
It is drained by the FTEs' work: drafting and revising, fact-checking against sources, measuring visibility, running missions, screening applications, reconciling transactions, and writing the morning brief. Reading the workspace, approving proposals, and changing settings consume nothing, because no model work happens when a person reviews what was already produced.
How do budgets work inside the wallet?
Inside the wallet, the manager sets a budget per Digital FTE in its Setup tab and a budget per mission at launch. Budgets are bounds rather than targets: an FTE plans its work within its budget, reports spend against it in the morning brief, warns as the limit approaches, and stops when the work is done even if budget remains. External spend a role controls, such as an ad budget, has its own separate cap and is billed by that platform, not by the wallet.
Usage is reported per FTE, so the tokens behind each role's outcomes are visible and cost per outcome can be computed per role rather than blended.
- Wallet: the block, one per organization
- Per-FTE budget: bound inside the wallet, set in Setup
- Per-mission budget: bound inside the FTE's budget, set at launch
- External spend: separate cap, billed by the platform that spends it
What is the hard stop?
The hard stop is the rule that an empty wallet pauses every Digital FTE. No work is done that the organization has not paid for, no charge accrues beyond the plan, and the workspace shows the pause plainly. Work resumes where it stopped after a top-up or the next cycle, with nothing lost.
For a finance leader this is the property that makes usage-based AI safe to approve: the maximum exposure in any period is the block already purchased, and the block was a decision they made.
What is the wallet often confused with?
It is confused with a seat licence, which prices access for a person; the wallet prices work regardless of how many people use the workspace. It is confused with a per-role subscription; every role shares the one wallet, and hiring a second role adds work drawn from the same block rather than a new line. It is confused with a credit line; it is the opposite, since nothing runs on credit.
It is sometimes assumed to be consumed by reading the workspace or approving proposals. It is not; human review is free of tokens, which is why the approval gate costs the manager minutes but not money.
Where do you see it in the workspace?
The wallet balance and the plan are in the organization's settings; per-FTE spend against budget is in each morning brief; usage per role is in each Performance tab; and every top-up and plan change is in the audit trail with who made it. The pricing page shows the current blocks.
Related terms: token, per-FTE budget, hard stop, cost per outcome, plan.
A last practical point for the first cycle: treat it as a measurement. The workspace's usage per role after one full cycle is what sizes the next block honestly, and a first block that runs out early is information about the roles' real workload rather than a failure of planning.