How to Use Payback
Payback is a free companion to Postonomous. Postonomous makes and scores your content; Payback helps you put numbers on it. Start with CreditMap to see what your monthly credits cover, then use Retainer to price the service, and Proven to decide where ad money goes. Each tab works on its own, so open whichever you need today.
Before you start
Every calculator in Payback runs inside this page. There is nothing to connect, no API key, and no account. Type numbers in, and the answer appears on the right as you type.
A CreditMap — know where every credit goes
Open the CreditMap tab. It has three tools along the top.
1. Credit Budget Builder
- Type a name in Brand or package name, then fill in what that brand gets each month: posts, networks, images, scored posts, competitor checks, shorts, ads and long videos.
- Not sure where to begin? Press Load sales-page Month A business to see the vendor's own 990-credit example.
- The right side shows the credits per line and the total. Credit costs come from the Postonomous sales page. Open Credit rate card to change any of them, and check them against the Billing page inside Postonomous.
- Tick I use my own AI key for text actions if you have plugged in your own key. Lines marked as text then cost 0.
- Press Add to Brand Split to send this package to the next tool. Press Save to keep it, Copy to paste it somewhere. Saved packages appear under Saved Credit Budgets: press Open to bring one back with all its numbers, or Delete to remove it.
2. Brand Split & Plan-Fit Checker
- Pick your credit pool in Monthly credit pool (5,000, 7,000, 10,000 or your own number).
- Press Add brand for each client. Enter the monthly fee, the credits that brand needs, and a priority (1 = normal, 2 = twice as important).
- If the plan is bigger than the pool, credits are shared out by fee × priority. Anyone who needs less than their share keeps only what they need, and the rest is passed on. The table shows who is short and by how much.
- The Plan fit table compares the same plan against each pool size and brand limit. It shows arithmetic only. It does not tell you what to buy.
- Use Save, Open and Delete under Saved Brand Splits to keep different client line-ups.
3. Use-It-or-Lose-It Tracker
- Set Credits this month, the days in the month, and today's day number.
- Press Add entry each time you spend credits. Pick the brand, enter the credits, and add a note.
- The table compares each brand's spend with its plan from tool 2, projects the month-end balance, and shows credits that would expire unused (unused credits don't carry over).
- Press Save at month end to keep a snapshot under Saved Months.
B Retainer — turn your credits into a price
Open the Retainer tab.
1. Retainer Pricing Engine
- Choose Business type and Local market, then enter what you will deliver each month.
- Enter your Hourly rate and the Target margin you want. Leave Hours per month (optional) blank to use an estimate.
- You get Good / Better / Best monthly prices. Each is the higher of your cost-plus-margin floor and the market estimate, which stays inside the $500–$5,000 range the Postonomous page quotes. The market estimate is a planning guide, not a forecast.
- Save, Open and Delete work under Saved Price Quotes.
2. Margin & Payback Calculator
- Press Use Better price from Pricing Engine to fill the price, credits and hours, or type your own.
- Choose the tool cost you paid ($287 with the coupon, $347 list, or your own number).
- The table shows profit per month and months to recoup the tool for 1, 5, 10 and your own number of clients. The Claim check box tests the sales page's "one client covers the Bundle" idea against your numbers.
- Keep scenarios under Saved Margin Scenarios with Save, Open and Delete.
3. Audit One-Pager
- Score a prospect's last five posts in Postonomous and type the five scores into Post 1 score to Post 5 score. Then type the score of the weakest post after the rewrite in Weakest post, rewritten score.
- Choose which price to quote in Price to show, then add your agency and the prospect's business name.
- Press Print / Save as PDF to hand over a one-page findings sheet. This is a leave-behind, not an outreach message or a proposal.
- Save, Open and Delete keep one sheet per prospect under Saved Audits.
C Proven — put ad money where the score says
Open the Proven tab. Postonomous does not run ads, so these tools help you decide how to split a budget you spend elsewhere.
1. Budget Splitter
- Enter your Total boost budget and the Test reserve % you want to keep aside.
- Press Add draft for each draft and enter its WinScore.
- Drafts below "Fix it first" below go back to Champion Mode. Drafts at or above "Worth promoting" from share the budget, with higher scores getting more. The test reserve goes to the best "Not yet" draft.
- Press Send to Boost Ledger to carry the split into tool 3. Use Save, Open and Delete under Saved Budget Splits.
2. Predicted-vs-Actual Calibration Log
- Name the result you measure in Result you measure (for example, engagements or reach).
- Press Add post for every published post. Enter its WinScore and what it actually got.
- With 8 or more posts, the tool shows how closely your scores tracked results and suggests your own cutoffs. Press Apply suggested cutoffs to use them in the Budget Splitter.
- Keep logs with Save, Open and Delete under Saved Calibration Logs.
3. Boost Ledger
- Rows arrive from the splitter, or press Add post to type your own. Enter the money spent and the results it brought.
- The tool shows cost per result for each score tier, so you can see whether higher-scored posts were cheaper to promote, and compares that to your calibration cutoff.
- Use Save, Open and Delete under Saved Ledgers to keep a ledger per campaign.
One thing to know
Everything you type, plus every saved item, is stored in this browser only. There are no accounts and nothing is sent anywhere. A different browser or device starts empty, and clearing your browser data erases your saved work. Every number here is an estimate for planning, not a forecast, a promise of earnings, or a guarantee of results. A WinScore is a signal, not a guarantee.
CreditMap
Know where every credit goes before the month starts. Plan the credits, split them across brands, and track what is left.
Credit rate card
Prefilled from the worked examples on the Postonomous sales page. Confirm each against the Billing page inside Postonomous and edit if yours differ.
Priority: 1 = normal, 2 = twice as important when credits run short. Fee is what the brand pays you per month; leave 0 if unknown.
Retainer
Turn your credits into a retainer you can quote on Monday. Price the service, check your margin, and leave a one-page audit behind.
Proven
Put the ad budget behind the post the score says deserves it, then check whether the scores held up. Postonomous does not run ads; these tools help you decide where the money you spend elsewhere goes.
Defaults of 50 and 70 are starting points. The Calibration Log can suggest cutoffs from your own results.
Enter the WinScore the post had before it went out, and the number it actually got. Use the same measure for every post.
Leave results blank until the boost has finished. Spend still counts in the totals.