Tiers
Maptero offers voice tiers that differ in speed. The faster tier responds almost instantly; the standard tier takes a few seconds while it processes what you said. You choose your tier from your Account (the user button in the header on desktop, or the Settings tab on mobile). A tier you do not have access to is shown locked.
During beta, new users start out with a premium realtime tier so you get the fast voice experience from the start. To keep your monthly budget from running out too quickly, once you have used about half your monthly sparks Maptero may move you to the standard tier (which uses fewer sparks per command) for the rest of the month. You can switch your tier back whenever you like; once you have, that choice holds for the rest of the month.
Sparks: your voice budget
Every voice command uses a small amount of your monthly budget, measured in sparks. You have a sparks allowance each month, and you can see your remaining sparks in your Account as a lightning bolt with a number (for example, a bolt followed by 248). After each command, a brief banner shows how many sparks that command used and how many you have left.
As you get close to your monthly limit:
- When you have under 20% of your sparks left, the counter turns amber.
- When you have under 5% left, it turns red.
- When you reach zero, voice is paused until the next month and Maptero shows a "No sparks remaining this month" message. You can still use everything else in the app by typing.
Your sparks refresh at the start of each calendar month.
The voice cost log
From your Account you can open a log of your recent voice commands. It is a transparency feature, so you can see what your voice usage looked like.
Project status updates also use a little of your spark budget, because they are powered by the same kind of AI as voice commands.