In short: Maia chat → ask for a voice-over → the cost card. Approve it to generate, or cancel and nothing is charged.
Sparks are the credits Protaigé work is paid for in. A voice-over costs Sparks, so Maia now tells you the price first and waits for your answer.
Ask her in chat for a voice-over and she replies with a quote instead of a clip. Nothing is generated and nothing is charged until you approve it.
Ask Maia for a voice-over
Open a chat with Maia and give her the script you want read aloud. If she does not know which voice to use, she asks you to pick one first. You can answer with a voice name.
Read the quote before anything runs
Maia replies with the price, in her words: "This voice-over runs about 10 seconds and costs 6 Sparks (2 five-second blocks). Generate it?" Voice-overs are priced from the length of your script, in five-second blocks rounded up. No clip has been made and no Sparks have been taken at this point.
If you are short of Sparks, she says so first
When your balance will not cover the job, Maia tells you before she asks you to agree to anything. She shows your balance, the cost and how many more Sparks you need. Nothing is generated.
Approve it, and pay exactly what you were quoted
Approve the card and Maia generates the clip. A player appears in the chat and the clip is saved to your audio library. The charge is the number of blocks you agreed to, even if the finished audio measures a little longer, so the quote and the deduction always match.
Cancel and nothing is spent
Cancel the card and no clip is made and no Sparks are taken. The next time you ask, Maia quotes the price again from scratch.
Change the script and you get a new quote
An approval only covers the script it was quoted for. Different words cost a different amount, so they get a quote of their own. A card can only run its job once; click an old one and Maia answers that the confirmation is no longer active and offers to quote it afresh.
Approve after a reconnect
If your connection drops or you reload the page, the card still works. The pending request is kept for 30 minutes in the chat thread it was shown in, so your click still reaches the right job.
The same card is used by other work that needs your yes, including publishing a social post and generating a key visual. On WhatsApp and email there is no card to click, so Maia goes ahead without asking.
