Totalum platform handbook

This page is the reference for the Totalum platform at platform.totalum.app — the app builder you sign up to and build in. It is deliberately terse: one or two lines per task, naming the exact screen. For the REST API and MCP, see the API overview.

#1 · Account and access

Accounts created on the old Totalum (accounts.totalum.app) are separate; the platform offers a one-time handoff when it recognises the address.

#2 · Plans and credits

Credits pay for everything the AI and the servers do. Two balances, and the plan credits are always spent first:

• Plan credits — granted monthly, reset each period, never roll over.
• Purchased credits — packs, referrals, signup bonus. Never expire.

People is how many can be on the account including you — Free's 1 means you alone, with no invitations available. A pending invitation holds a seat until it is accepted, revoked or expires.

One plan per account, covering every project on it. Projects is how many you may have at once — delete one and the slot is free immediately. New projects is how fast you may create them; it exists so a create-and-delete loop cannot provision servers faster than a person would.

Every paid plan lets you edit your code (in the browser editor or with the visual editor), download the full source, connect GitHub and attach your own custom domain — on every one of your projects, with no per-project allowance — and publishes without the "Made with Totalum" badge. Viewing your source code is free on every plan; only editing and downloading are paid. Connecting Figma is free on every plan too, including Free — you bring your own Figma token.

The API, MCP and the white-label builder are on every plan, including Free. There is no tier requirement: the only thing an API call needs is a positive credit balance, and API keys can be created from any account. See §12.

Accounts in Europe are billed in EUR, elsewhere in USD at the same number. Prices exclude tax.

Infrastructure, the database and the built-in integrations are billed with credits, not by the plan. Your plan's monthly credits pay for them and you can top up at any time.

#What the plan does not cap — backend and database

Your projects' backend and database grow with your traffic. There is no ceiling and nothing to provision in advance:

• Unlimited database records — a table's row count is bounded only by storage.
• No limit on requests per second.
• ~1 000 database queries per second, at about 1 ms per query. A database runs queries one at a time, so slower queries mean proportionally fewer per second.

You pay only for what you actually use, in credits:

These rates are the same on every plan — what a bigger plan buys is more monthly credits to spend on them.

#Built on Cloudflare

Your project's frontend and backend are deployed across Cloudflare's global network — 300+ cities in 100+ countries at once. There are no regions to choose, no servers to size and nothing to scale by hand: each request is served from a location near whoever made it, under 50 ms for 95% of Internet users. Scaling from one visitor to a million needs no change on your side and no warning to us.

Your project's database is fully managed by Totalum: automatic hourly backups, data stored in the European Union, and no row limit or capacity to provision. It grows with your app.

What costs credits. A prompt is metered by what the AI actually uses, so it has no fixed price — everything else is fixed: create project 1 · publish 1 · start/restart server 3 · read source code 1 · restore a version 2 · custom domain 2 · upload a file 0.5 · export 2 · import 6.

You need at least 1 credit to start any of it, including a prompt.

Where: Settings → Billing for the plan, credit packs, auto-recharge and cancellation. Upgrades apply immediately; a cancellation keeps the plan until the end of the period it is paid for.

#Free credits

• Invite someone (Settings → Referrals): 50 credits each when their email is verified, 150 more each when they first pay. New accounts only, never yourself, once per person, paid into purchased credits.
• Post about Totalum (the "Get free credits" menu): post on LinkedIn, X or Reddit, send us the link, ask for 250 credits. A human reviews it and answers in your support chat. One open request at a time, keep the post public.
• 50 credits on signup, once.

#Payments, invoices, auto-recharge

• Payment method: Settings → Billing → manage the subscription; card changes happen on Stripe's own page.
• Invoices: Settings → Invoices — PDF or the Stripe copy. Business details for future invoices are edited from that page; issued invoices are final and cannot be changed.
• Auto-recharge: Settings → Billing. Pick a threshold and an amount and the saved card tops the balance up automatically, so a long build does not stop halfway.

#3 · Projects

Create one — the prompt box on /projects: describe the app and press Create. Costs 1 credit; the first build takes a few minutes.

What gets built: a Next.js 15 + React 19 app in TypeScript with Tailwind CSS 4, a Totalum database, authentication (better-auth), file storage and Stripe available, deployed on Totalum's own hosting. Every project is a real repository of code you can read, edit, download or push to GitHub.

#4 · Building

You build by talking to the agent in the project's chat. One run at a time per project.

The preview is broken / blank / unstyled. The workspace tells you which of two things it measured and offers the fix:

1. "This preview is broken" — the page is empty, unstyled, or showing the sandbox error screen. Press Ask the AI to fix it; it sends a prompt describing exactly that.
2. "This preview isn't running" — the HTML renders but no JavaScript loads, so nothing is clickable. Same button, different prompt.
3. "Cached snapshot · the server is asleep" — the sandbox archived itself after being idle. It wakes on its own; a prompt or a restart brings it back.

Restart the development server — the preview panel → Restart the server. Takes 2 to 4 minutes, the preview goes offline and prompts are paused meanwhile. Code and data are untouched. Costs 3 credits.

Edit visually — the Visual editor button over the preview: click any text, image, colour or size, change it, then apply. The changes are written into the real code. Paid plans only.

Edit the code — the Code tab: load the files (1 credit, then free for the session), open one, edit, Save. Saving does not change the running app — press Rebuild now (1 to 4 minutes) to make it live. Files over 1 MB open only by downloading the project.

Go back to an earlier version — Project menu → Version history. Every completed run leaves a snapshot; Restore replaces the current code with it. Anything built since is lost and it cannot be undone. Costs 2 credits and takes 1 to 4 minutes.

Secrets (API keys, tokens your app needs) — Project menu → Secrets. Encrypted, never shown again after saving, and you choose development, production or both. Paste a whole .env at once if you like.

#5 · Database

The Database tab in the workspace is the app's real data.

• Tables: every table the agent created, with its fields and relations (belongs to one, has many, linked to many, one to one).
• Add or edit a record: open a table → Edit on a row, or add a new one. Related records are picked from a list, not typed.
• Files in a record: choose a file or attach one from a URL, up to 12 MB each.
• Filters: Filters → add a condition (field, operator, value), combine them with and / or, group them, and filter on a linked table's fields too. Show the query reveals exactly what is sent to the database.

Asking the agent in chat also works for structural changes ("add a status field to orders") — the Database tab is for looking and for day-to-day rows.

#6 · Publishing, domains and logs

Publish — the Publish button in the workspace. Takes about 3 minutes and puts the app on a public *.totalum-project.com address; you can keep working while it runs. Publishing again replaces what is live and keeps the same address. Costs 1 credit.

Custom domain — Project menu → Custom domain. Publish first (a domain points at the published app), then add a subdomain you control (app.example.com), copy the DNS records shown into your domain provider, and wait: DNS usually takes minutes but can take hours, then HTTPS is issued automatically. Nothing to confirm — it is detected. Costs 2 credits; available on every paid plan, on as many projects as you like. If HTTPS fails, a DNS record is almost always missing or mistyped: fix it, remove the domain, add it again.

Logs — Project menu → Logs, with two sources:

• Development — live output from the server behind your preview.
• Production — requests to your published site. Delivered in batches, so the last couple of hours may be missing — that is normal, not a fault. Searchable across the whole window with regular expressions.

#7 · GitHub and Figma

Connect GitHub — Project menu → GitHub. You need a fine-grained personal access token (github_pat_…) scoped to one existing repository, with Contents, Pull requests and Workflows set to Read and write. The repository must already exist, and if it already has code it needs develop and main branches. On the first connection you choose which side wins: Totalum → GitHub, or GitHub → Totalum. Paid plans only, on as many projects as you like.

How the two-way sync works — this is the whole contract:

• Before every prompt Totalum pulls the latest from develop.
• After every prompt it commits and pushes to develop.
• When you publish, it opens a pull request from develop into main and merges it.
• Work on develop on your own machine. Do not commit to main yourself — publishing merges develop into it, and overwrites it if the two conflict.
• Pull from GitHub at any time from the same panel.

If the token expires or is revoked the panel says so; reconnect with a new one.

Connect Figma — Project menu → Figma, paste a Figma personal access token. The agent can then read the designs you link in a prompt and build from them. Available on every plan, including Free — you bring your own Figma token, so there is nothing for us to meter. Each project is connected separately, and you can disconnect from the same panel.

#8 · Team

Settings → Team. Invite someone by email and pick what they can do:

• Admin — everything in the account.
• Manager — only what you tick: which projects (view or edit, or all projects now and later), whole groups, create projects, manage billing, see usage, manage API keys.

Members work on your projects and spend your credits. Nobody but the owner can change or cancel the plan, invite people, delete a project or close the account. How many people fit is set by your plan — Free 1 · Starter 3 · Builder 5 · Professional 10 · Enterprise 500, and the owner is one of them, so a free account can invite nobody. A pending invitation holds a seat until it is accepted, revoked or expires. Invitations can be resent, revoked or edited; a member can be removed or signed out of every device.

#9 · Notifications

Settings → Notifications, three kinds:

• Emails — product news (monthly at most) · your first build finishing · running low on credits. Each is a separate switch.
• Browser notifications — "tell me when support replies". Granted per browser, so the switch only applies to the browser you set it in. If it is blocked, allow notifications for the site next to the address bar and try again.
• Sound — the chime when a run finishes, in Settings → Preferences.

#10 · Usage

Settings → Usage: where credits went, by day, project and action. The sidebar always shows the balance, split into plan credits and purchased credits — the tooltip explains which is spent first.

#11 · Limits worth knowing

• 1 credit minimum to start any paid action; a prompt is metered, not fixed-price.
• One agent run at a time per project; a publish, rebuild, restore or import blocks the others while it runs.
• How many projects you may have at once is set by your plan (Free 2 · Starter 10 · Builder 50 · Professional 300 · Enterprise unlimited). Reaching it does not affect anything you have already built: delete a project you no longer need, or move up a plan. We email you the first time you hit it.
• How fast you may create them is also set by your plan (Free 1 every 5 minutes · Starter 5/min · Builder 10/min · Professional 30/min · Enterprise 100/min, plus an hourly ceiling). Unlike the limit above, this one clears on its own — wait and try again.
• Code editing, source downloads, GitHub connections and custom domains are unlimited on every paid plan and are not available on Free. Reading your code, and connecting Figma, are free on every plan.
• File uploads: 12 MB each. Code files over 1 MB cannot be opened in the browser editor.
• Export once a minute.

#12 · API, MCP and building your own builder

Everything above is available programmatically.

• API key: the API page in the platform. Keys start with tlm_sk_ and must stay on your own server.
• REST API: API overview and the Quickstart.
• MCP (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex…): MCP setup — same key.
• White-label app builder: the platform is one client of a public API, so you can build your own branded builder on it. See Build your own AI app builder and the open reference implementation at github.com/totalumlabs/ai-app-builder-open.

#13 · Support

The Need help? button in the workspace, or the Support page. Attach a screenshot or a file if it helps. Replies arrive in the same chat, and — if you allowed browser notifications — as a desktop notification.