No. On 8frame, when a generation fails, the credits it cost go back to your balance automatically. The refund is part of marking the generation failed, so there is nothing to claim and no one to email. In the 120 days to 2026-09-28, every failed generation on 8frame was refunded this way. What a failure does still cost you is time, which matters most on the slow models.
TL;DR
- Failed means refunded, automatically. The full amount the run cost, including duration and resolution, returns to your balance.
- No support ticket needed. Contact support only if a failed run's credits did not come back.
- A finished generation you dislike is not a failure. It completed, so it is not refunded.
- Retrying the same failing input costs time, not credits. A Seedance run takes minutes, so find the cause instead of looping.
- Every failure shows the same message on 8frame: "Sensitive content detected. Please try changing your prompt or image." It is not always about content.
What counts as a failure
A generation is failed when the model or its provider returns an error instead of a result. In our logs that covers:
- A content filter refusing the prompt or a reference image. The largest group, led by Seedance rejecting close-up faces in reference images. See Seedance "flagged as sensitive" (E005).
- A provider outage or error. Messages like "Downstream service error".
- An input the provider would not accept, such as a file over its size limit or a prompt over its length limit.
- A retired model. Sora's provider shut down on 2026-09-24.
Each of these is refunded in full.
What is not refunded
- A generation that completed but missed the brief. Wrong motion, a changed product label, a face that drifted: the model delivered a result, so the run is spent. The fix is a better prompt or a cheaper draft model, not a refund. Why AI video ignores your prompt covers the usual causes.
- A setting you did not mean to pick. Wan 3.0 defaults to 1080p, its most expensive tier: 95 credits for 5 seconds against 24 at 480p. That is a completed run at the price shown, not a billing error.
How the refund works
When the provider reports a failure, 8frame marks the generation failed and, in the same database step, credits back what that generation cost. The refund uses the amount actually charged for that run, so a long or high-resolution generation gets its full price back, not a default. Each refund is recorded once per generation, so a run cannot be refunded twice.
You see the balance restored in the app. A failed Seedance run, for example, returns its 157 credits (70 at 480p); a failed Veo 3.1 Lite 8-second run with audio returns its 54.
What a failure still costs you
Time. Median generation times on 8frame run from under a minute on the fast video models to several minutes on the heavy ones (numbers in how long AI video generation takes). A deterministic failure retried five times on a slow model is a lost half hour even though it cost no credits.
Two habits save that time:
- Read the cause before retrying. A close-up face on Seedance fails every time; a provider outage may clear in minutes. They need opposite responses.
- Draft cheap. Test a new prompt or reference on an inexpensive model first: Wan 3.0 at 480p is 24 credits for 5 seconds, Veo 3.1 Lite 27 for 4 seconds. Move to the expensive model once the input is known to work.
Other platforms
Refund policies differ between tools. Check the terms of the one you use before you retry an expensive model in a loop.
FAQ
Do failed AI generations cost credits on 8frame? No. The credits return automatically in the same step that marks the generation failed.
Do I need to contact support for a refund? No. Contact support only if a failed generation's credits did not come back.
Is a bad result refunded? No. A generation that completed is not a failure, even if the result is not what you wanted.
Why did 8frame say "Sensitive content detected"? 8frame shows that one message for every failure, including provider outages and file problems. See why an AI generation fails for how to find the real cause.
Fail cheap, then scale up. The 8frame canvas is free and unlimited, and generation is paid from $19/month.