Lofty Chat vs. Lofty Cowork: Which should I use?

Lofty AI has two modes, and the easiest way to choose is to ask yourself one question: do I want an answer, or do I want the work done?

• Chat is for quick answers. Look up leads, check your calendar, get a draft, ask how something works. Chat doesn’t use AI credits.
• Cowork is for getting work done. It plans the steps, runs the work, and brings back the finished result. Every Cowork request uses AI credits, and bigger jobs use more.

You can switch between them with the Chat | Cowork toggle at the top of Lofty AI. Switching starts a fresh conversation, and your old one is saved in your chat history.

Use Lofty Chat when you want to think, ask, or draft

Chat is fast and conversational. It’s the right fit when you want to:

• Look up your data: “Who visited my website in the last 30 days?” “What’s on my calendar today?” “Show me Jordan’s last text.”
• Get answers about Lofty: “How does lead routing work?” “Where do I set up a Smart Plan?”
• Brainstorm and draft: a follow-up script, an email, a text or a listing description.
• Take quick actions: send a drafted email, place a call, or save an appointment right from the card Chat gives you.

Chat doesn’t use credits. Chat’s search filters are simpler than Cowork’s. If Chat tells you it can’t filter by something, Cowork may be able to do it, but that request will use credits.

Use Lofty Cowork when you want the work done

Cowork works inside your Lofty account and your connected tools, then comes back with the finished result. Reach for it when your request means:

• Working across many leads or records: “Review all my leads for data hygiene,” “Tag every buyer who hasn’t been contacted in 60 days.”
• Multi-step jobs: “Check my calendar, prep a brief for my 2pm, and email it to me.”
• Finished documents: a CMA as a PDF, a pitch deck, a deal spreadsheet, a market report.
• Automations: scheduled tasks, Custom Agents and Smart Plans that run on their own.
• Complex searches that Chat can’t filter for.

Quick comparison

How Cowork keeps you in control

Cowork never sends a message or changes a record on its own. Every action — an email to a lead, a stage change, a bulk update — is shown to you first as a confirmation card with the full details, and nothing happens until you approve it.

What's always free

Cowork's chat is your everyday workspace. Anything that's a conversation about your own data is free:

• Look things up — search leads, listings, contacts, transactions; view profiles and histories
• Read what's going on — messages, replies, call transcripts, notes
• Get answers — how Lofty works, what a feature does, how to approach something

Power Prompts Use Credits

Credits kick in when you ask Cowork to run a task — not talk about one. That includes:

• Dedicated Cowork tools: Compose Messages, Prep Meeting, Plan My Day, Performance Report, Create Skills, Create PPT, Process PDF, Deal Spreadsheet, Generate Doc
• Database-wide work: ask Cowork to review, clean, tag, or export an entire database / large segment — credit cost scales with how many leads are processed
• Custom Agent runs: every time a custom agent runs (on schedule, on a trigger, or on demand) consumes credits
• Creating Smart Plans: every time Cowork helps you build, edit, or delete smart plans, it consumes credits

Rule of thumb: if Cowork is doing something — generating, processing, automating — it draws credits. The bigger the job, the more credits.

How to tell the difference at a glance

Where to see your usage

Billing Center → Manage Credits shows your AI runs, credits used per conversation, and the token-to-credit ratio. You can see a full walkthrough of the Credits in Billing Center here: Viewing and Managing Cowork Credits in Lofty AOS

FAQ

• I ran low on credits — can I still chat? Yes, free chat is always free and unlimited
• Do Custom Agents use my credits? Yes — each run is metered and tracked separately by agent
• Why did that one chat cost me credits? A tool ran, a custom agent fired, or a large database job was requested — check Billing Center → Manage Credits for the breakdown
• Is there a limit on free chat? No — it's unlimited

Questions?

If you have any questions regarding this topic or any others, please reach out to our Support Team via email at support@lofty.com, by phone at 1 (855) 981-7557, or by chat with us through your Lofty CRM.