March brings two significant updates to SheetMagic: a complete rebuild of how we track quotas and usage, and a new Claude web search capability that lets your AI formulas pull live information from the internet. Here is what changed, how it works, and why it matters.
License-based quota management: accurate usage tracking for every user
Previously, SheetMagic tracked usage at the user level. If you had two licenses -- one for your agency and one for a client project, for example -- your quotas were pooled together into a single bucket. Seat users saw aggregated numbers that did not reflect their actual available quota. This was confusing and, in some cases, misleading.
We rebuilt the entire quota system from the ground up. Usage is now tracked per-license.
What changed
Multi-license users now see separate quota pools for each license. If you have a Team plan and a Solo plan, each license maintains its own AI token and integration credit balance. They do not mix. You can see exactly how much capacity remains on each license without doing mental math to figure out what belongs where.
Seat users consume quota from the specific license they are assigned to, not from a combined pool across the organization. If you are a seat on a Team license with 15 million tokens, you see the remaining tokens on that license -- not some inflated total that includes tokens from other licenses you cannot actually use.
Quota resets happen per-license on the billing cycle. Each license resets independently, so a Team plan renewing on the 15th does not affect a Solo plan renewing on the 1st.
Why this matters
The old system created real problems. A team lead with two licenses might see "25 million tokens remaining" when in reality one license had 20 million left and another had 5 million. Worse, a seat user on the second license might see that same 25 million figure and assume they had far more capacity than they actually did. Decisions about upgrading or purchasing credit packs were based on inaccurate information.
Per-license tracking eliminates that ambiguity entirely. Every number you see in the product corresponds to actual available capacity on the license you are using.
What you will notice in the product
In the Google Sheets add-on: The usage display now shows the quota for your specific license. If you are a seat user, you see your assigned license's remaining balance. If you own multiple licenses, you see the license associated with the current sheet.
In the dashboard: The usage overview at dashboard.sheetmagic.ai shows a per-license breakdown when you have more than one. Each license displays its own remaining AI tokens and integration credits, along with usage trends over time.
If you are a seat user and your usage numbers look different from what you saw before, that is expected. You are now seeing your actual available quota on your assigned license, not a misleading aggregate across all licenses in the organization.
Credit packs
One-time credit packs still work the same way. When you purchase additional tokens or integration credits from the dashboard, they are added to your account and consumed after your license's monthly quota is exhausted. Credit packs are valid for 365 days from the date of purchase and are consumed in order (oldest first).
Technical details for power users
The migration is fully backward-compatible. All existing quota balances were carried over accurately. The key database change: remaining_ai_tokens and remaining_integration_credits now live on the license record rather than the user subscription record. All quota check and usage recording functions resolve to the correct license automatically, including for seat users who inherit their owner's license.
If you are using the SheetMagic API or building automations around usage data, the external behavior is unchanged -- the system resolves the correct license internally.
Claude web search: live internet data in your AI formulas
SheetMagic's AI formulas -- =AITEXT(), =AILIST(), =AIIMAGE(), and others -- are powerful for generating, analyzing, and transforming text. But until now, they were limited to the knowledge baked into the AI model. If you asked about a company's latest funding round, today's weather, or a product that launched last week, the model could only guess or admit it did not know.
Claude web search changes that. When enabled, Claude can search the internet in real time to answer your formula queries with current, sourced information.
How it works
To use web search, pass TRUE as the third argument to =AITEXT(). When enabled, the AI model searches the internet in real time, reads the relevant results, and incorporates that information into its response.
For example:
=AITEXT("What is the current market cap of Apple Inc?", , TRUE)
Without the TRUE parameter, this would return an outdated figure based on the model's training data cutoff. With web search enabled, Claude searches for the latest data and returns a current answer. Web search is supported with Claude, OpenAI, and Perplexity models.
Practical use cases
Market research: Pull current pricing, company information, or competitive data directly into your spreadsheet. Ask about recent product launches, funding rounds, or executive changes and get answers based on what is on the web right now.
=AITEXT("Who is the current CEO of " & A2 & " and when did they start?", , TRUE)
Content enrichment: If you have a list of companies, products, or topics in column A, use AI formulas with web search to enrich each row with live data -- descriptions, founding dates, headquarters locations, recent news.
=AITEXT("List the 3 most recent funding rounds for " & A2 & ". Format each as: Date | Amount | Lead Investor. One round per line.")
Fact checking and verification: Cross-reference claims, statistics, or quotes against current web sources. Useful for journalism, research, and due diligence workflows.
SEO and content workflows: Get current search trends, check what is ranking for specific queries, or research topics with the latest available information rather than stale training data.
What web search costs
Web search queries use AI tokens like any other formula call. The token cost is slightly higher than a standard query because the model processes search results in addition to generating the response. There is no separate charge for the search itself -- it is included in the normal token usage.
Claude web search is available on all plans that include platform AI keys: Free (within the 5K token monthly limit), Solo, Team, and Business. BYOK users on paid plans can also use web search with their own Claude API key. Visit pricing for plan details.
Tips for getting the best results with web search
Be specific about what "current" means. Instead of "latest news about Tesla," try "Tesla news from March 2026" to help the model target the right timeframe.
Combine with cell references for bulk enrichment. The real power is using web search across hundreds of rows. A formula like =AITEXT("What does " & A2 & " do and how many employees do they have?", , TRUE) dragged down a column of company names will search and return current data for each one.
Use pipe-separated output for structured web data. When you want multiple fields returned from a web search, ask the AI to format results with | separators, then use =SPLIT() to break them into clean columns.
What we are working on next
More AI model options. We are evaluating additional models for specific use cases -- faster models for simple extraction tasks, more capable models for complex analysis. The goal is to let you pick the right tool for the job.
Deeper formula capabilities. More control over output formatting, better handling of large datasets, and improved error messages when formulas hit edge cases.
Enhanced usage analytics. More granular breakdowns of how your tokens and credits are being used -- by formula type, by sheet, by time period -- so you can optimize your usage patterns.
Try the new features today
If you are on any SheetMagic plan, these updates are live right now. The license-based quota system is already active -- check your dashboard to see the per-license breakdown. Claude web search is enabled and ready to use in any AI formula.
If you are on the free tier, you can try Claude web search within your 5,000 token monthly allowance. Use =AITEXT() with a question that requires current information and see the difference. When you are ready for more capacity, paid plans start at $19/month. Visit pricing for details.
If you are new to SheetMagic entirely, start with the getting started guide to install the add-on and run your first formula in under two minutes.