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Platform Help & Tutorials

Find answers to common questions and video tutorials below. Use the AI Chatbot on the bottom right for specific "how-to" questions!

💰 Refund Policy

What is the refund policy for Monthly Subscriptions?

Monthly subscriptions may be cancelled at any time to prevent future charges. However, no refunds are issued for the current active billing period. You will retain full access to your platform and its quotas until the end of your prepaid billing cycle.

What is the refund policy for Annual Subscriptions?

When you purchase an annual commitment, you are billed upfront at a heavily discounted per-month rate.

If you cancel an annual subscription before the end of your 12-month term, the months you have already used will be retroactively charged at the standard monthly rate (not the discounted annual rate). The remaining balance of your initial payment is then refunded to your original payment method.

Example: You subscribe to an annual plan for $23,964 ($1,997/mo rate). You cancel after 4 months. Your 4 months of usage are retroactively adjusted to the standard $2,497/mo rate ($9,988 total usage cost). You are refunded $13,976 ($23,964 - $9,988).
Can I get a refund if I don't use my quotas?

No. We do not offer prorated refunds for unused minutes or articles. Your subscription reserves dedicated cloud computing bandwidth regardless of whether you generate content that month.

🚀 Getting Started

Why is my Brand Profile and Content Pillars setup so important?

Your Brand Profile and Content Pillars act as the "brain" for the entire platform. Every single video script, article, and social post the AI generates is strictly guided by the tone, audience, and pillars you set here.

If you put garbage in, you get garbage out. A generic setup yields generic content. To get the absolute best media produced, take the time to deeply define your value propositions and target audience.

Pro Tip for Website Scanning: When you use our AI Brand Wizard to automatically scan your website, it looks for specific pages. To maximize the AI's understanding of your business (and to drastically improve your own Google SEO), ensure your website has dedicated "Services" and "About Us" pages. The richer your website, the better our AI can replicate your brand voice!
Need Help Getting Setup? We understand that defining the perfect SEO keywords, CTAs, and content pillars from scratch can be overwhelming. That's why we built an AI Onboarding Assistant directly into the platform to do it for you. Use the AI Assistant on the Brand Setup page to automatically extract your website and generate your pillars!
What is BDS Growth Engine?

BDS Growth Engine is a comprehensive all-in-one content generation and scheduling platform designed for modern brands and agencies. Using advanced AI, the platform writes contextual articles, generates full videos (with cinematic narrators or custom digital avatars), and schedules out a daily content pillar plan across your connected social platforms.

What does the "Enrich with Live Internet News" checkbox do?

By default, the AI writes content based on its vast internal knowledge. However, if you check Enrich with Live Internet News, the engine will actively browse the web in real-time to research breaking news, current events, and live statistics before writing your script or article.

Note: Because this requires advanced live-search agents, this feature is restricted to our higher-tier premium plans.

How long does video generation take?

Standard AI videos (stock footage) typically render in 1–2 minutes. Premium Avatar videos require significantly more cloud compute and take roughly 12 minutes of real-world processing time per 1 minute of video length. You can safely navigate away from the page while a video is rendering; it will automatically appear in your Drafts tab when finished.

Can I use my own written script instead of AI? (Script-to-Video)

Absolutely. On the "Create" page, you can choose to paste your own exact script or article instead of having the AI write one from scratch. The engine will read your text and automatically generate perfectly synced voiceovers, subtitles, and background footage to match your exact words.

  • Premium Long-Form Pool: Every month, your account receives a 3,400-word pool dedicated to long-form content. Using this pool, you can generate massive videos up to a hard cap of 1,680 words (~12 minutes) per script.
  • Standard Video Mode: If you exhaust your 3,400-word monthly pool, you are not locked out! The system simply transitions to Standard Mode, allowing you to generate unlimited scripts capped at 420 words (~3 minutes) each, governed exclusively by your available video minutes.
What languages are supported?

The BDS Growth Engine currently supports 12 major languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Polish, Hindi, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Arabic. Simply select your target language from the dropdown menu when generating content.

How do I "warm up" a Custom Avatar? (Initialization)

The very first time you use a new Custom Avatar, the system needs to process and optimize your avatar's profile for future use. If your very first video is extremely long, this initial optimization step could occasionally cause a timeout.

CRITICAL INITIALIZATION REQUIREMENT:

You MUST generate a very short 10-second script the very first time you use a newly uploaded Avatar! The AI engine requires roughly 15 minutes to mathematically scan and securely cache your avatar's facial geometry on its first run.

WARNING: If you ignore this initialization step and attempt to generate a full 10-minute video on your very first run, the cloud renderer will take over 3 hours, your generation will physically time out, and your minutes will be non-refundable. Once your initial 10-second video is completed, your Avatar is permanently processed and you may generate up to 10-minute videos safely!
Can I edit the background video for an Avatar?

No. When you generate a Custom Avatar video, the Avatar itself physically occupies the entire screen. Because of this, the Scene Timeline and Transitions are locked and disabled in the AI Video Editor.

However, you CAN still edit everything else! You are fully able to tweak the Narrator Voice, Subtitle Style, Ambient Audio, and the Script Editor (which dynamically regenerates the Avatar's lip-sync to perfectly match your new words).

Can I use my own pictures in AI Videos?

Yes! Navigate to the Media Vault in your sidebar. Here, you can upload your own custom brand photos (like your office, team members, or past projects).

When you generate a video or when Autopilot creates content for you, the AI engine will intelligently pull from your Vault and inject these custom assets into the video timeline, replacing generic stock footage with your actual brand imagery.

What are Daily Marketing Directives and how do I use them?

Daily Marketing Directives are custom instructions you can save to guide the AI's content creation for the day. They allow you to feed the AI specific topics, seasonal promotions, or rules that apply only to today's schedule, ensuring highly relevant and timely content.

To use them, navigate to the Daily Directives page in the sidebar (under Creation Studio). You can enter instructions manually or click the 🔍 Research & Suggest Directives button to activate our smart helper. The smart helper scans your website domain configured under Setup Brands (setup-brand.html) and researches live current events/trends to automatically draft suggestions for you to review and publish.

You can also copy your live, rendered directives HTML link for external verification by clicking the 📋 Copy URL button on the top status bar of the page.

Plan Requirements: Daily Marketing Directives are restricted to the Super Bundle plan and higher (including Solo Pro, Agency Starter, Agency, White Label, and Enterprise). If you are on a lower tier, you must upgrade your plan to access this feature.

For a complete walkthrough, refer to the Daily Directives Training Guide in the Academy Hub.

🔗 Connecting Platforms

How do I connect my Facebook and Instagram?

To connect Meta properties (Facebook, Instagram, and Threads), you need to have a Business or Creator profile.

  1. Navigate to Setup Platforms in your sidebar menu.
  2. Click the Connect button next to the desired network.
  3. An authorization popup will appear. Log in to your Meta account.
  4. Ensure you select all specific pages you want the platform to be able to post on. Skipping a page means it won't be accessible by Autopilot.
Important: If your access token expires, the dashboard will change its status to "Disconnected". You simply need to click connect again to refresh.
How do I integrate WordPress?

WordPress requires our specialized BDS Integration Plugin to support the rich article formats.

  1. Download the BDS Connect Plugin.
  2. In your WordPress Admin, go to Plugins -> Add New -> Upload Plugin and install the zip file.
  3. Activate the plugin and ensure Application Passwords are enabled under your user profile.
  4. Click "Get Specific Application Password" and input it into the BDS Growth Engine Settings modal.

For more detailed instructions, view the full WordPress Setup Guide.

Why are my Google Business posts rejected or cut off?

Google Business Profile has incredibly strict spam filters and strict media dimension rules. If your posts are failing or images look bad, ensure you follow these exact rules:

  1. No Links in Text: Do not write website URLs (like "bdsgrowth.com") or phone numbers in your post text. Google will immediately reject it as spam. The platform will automatically attach a "Learn More" button with your link instead.
  2. Strict Video Limits: Videos must be under 30.00 seconds and under 75 MB. Even a 30.1-second video will be automatically rejected. Processing can take up to 30 minutes before the video plays live.
  3. Perfect Square Logos: Your Logo must be a perfect square (720x720). Your brand mark should only take up the center area to prevent Google's circular crop from chopping off the edges.
  4. Wide Cover Photos: Your Cover Photo must be exactly 1080x608 (16:9 ratio). Keep the actual logo small and in the dead center so it doesn't get chopped off on mobile devices.

🤖 Autopilot & Scheduling

How does the Autopilot schedule work?

When you enable Autopilot, our background server spins up a dedicated AI worker for your account every 3 hours. During this window, it checks your desired schedule matrix.

If there is an empty schedule slot 7-days from now, the AI will automatically write, format, generate a video/article, and attach it to your schedule. You can always review and edit these drafts in the Drafts page before they go live!

What does the "Time" setting control — generation or publishing?

The Time field (e.g., 3:05 AM) controls when your content is published to your social platforms — not when the AI generates it.

Content generation happens automatically in the background whenever the autopilot detects gaps in your 7-day calendar window (checked every 3 hours). The generated drafts will then be scheduled to deploy at your selected time on your selected days.

Example: You set Time to 3:05 AM and enable "Generate Content" at 9 AM. The autopilot worker may generate your drafts at 9:35 AM — but those videos will be queued to publish to YouTube at 3:05 AM on their scheduled day.
Why are my Videos and Articles scheduled on different days even though I set the same preferred time?

This happens because the Autopilot scheduler uses a global time-slot system to prevent accidental double-posting (slot collisions).

If you set your Video lane and your Article lane to the exact same preferred time (e.g., both at 9:00 AM), the AI will book that specific 9:00 AM slot for the Video, and then see the slot as "taken" when it tries to schedule the Article. It will then push the Article to the next available day that has an empty 9:00 AM slot.

The Solution: Stagger Your Times. To guarantee different content types land on the exact same day, simply stagger their preferred times by at least 5 minutes in your Autopilot settings (e.g., Videos at 9:00 AM, Articles at 9:05 AM, Social Posts at 9:10 AM).
What happens if I forget to approve my drafts? (Smart Buffer Cap)

If your Autopilot is ON, but "Auto-Approve" is OFF, all generated content goes to your Drafts tab. To protect you from runaway API charges, the engine features a Smart Buffer Cap.

The system allows you to stockpile unscheduled drafts up to a maximum limit of 2x your weekly schedule target. For example, if your Autopilot is set to "Daily" (target = 7), you can hoard up to 14 drafts. Once you hit 14, the Autopilot worker will automatically pause generation until you review your inbox to approve or delete those drafts.

What does "Submit Drafts Automatically to Live" mean?

By default, Autopilot places its generated content into your Draft pool. You must manually click "Approve" for them to reach the live queue.

If you check the "Submit Drafts Automatically to Live" toggle, you are giving the Platform full autonomous rights to publish directly to your social platforms without your manual review. You are completely responsible for any content pushed autonomously.

Why do my new drafts say "Unknown" for the platform?

We believe in a "Content First, Distribution Second" philosophy. A draft is simply raw content and isn't permanently locked to a specific platform until you are ready to publish it. When you click "Approve & Schedule", the system will attach the platforms you configured in Autopilot (e.g., YouTube and LinkedIn) and finalize the post.

What is the "Engage" toggle on each content section?

Each content section (Videos, Articles, Social Posts) has its own Engage toggle in the top-right corner. This controls whether the Autopilot worker will automatically generate that specific content type during its scheduled 3-hour runs.

For example, if you only want Autopilot to generate Videos but not Articles or Social Posts, simply toggle Engage ON for Videos and leave the other two OFF. This prevents unwanted content generation and protects your quota from being consumed on content types you don't need.

Important: The Engage toggle is separate from the master Autopilot toggle at the top of the page. The master toggle must be ON and at least one section must be Engaged for any content to be generated.
Can I generate Avatar videos from the Autopilot "Generate" button?

No. The manual "Generate" button on the Autopilot page does not support Avatar video generation. If you have an Avatar (Spokesperson) selected and click Generate, you will see an error message and the request will be blocked.

Avatar videos can only be generated in two ways:

  • Quick Post (Create page): Navigate to the Create page, select your Avatar from the Spokesperson dropdown, and generate manually.
  • Scheduled Autopilot Runs: When Autopilot runs on its automatic 3-hour cycle with an Avatar configured, it routes the job to our dedicated AI Factory GPU cluster for reliable processing.
Why? Avatar rendering requires specialized GPU infrastructure. The manual Generate button is designed for quick batch testing and routes through a different processing pipeline not optimized for Avatar rendering.
Can I schedule a single post to multiple platforms at once?

Yes! When manually approving a draft or using the Quick Post tool, you can check multiple social networks at the same time (e.g., Facebook + Instagram + LinkedIn). The system will automatically duplicate the post and dispatch it to all selected networks simultaneously.

💳 Billing & Quotas

How do Avatar & Voice Clone quotas work?

Generating standard videos consumes your quota at a 1:1 ratio. However, Premium AI resources (Avatars and Voice Clones) demand immense GPU compute and consume your video minutes at an 8x Multiplier.

The Avatar Capacity Formula:

Step 1: Divide your Total Video Minutes by 8 to find your MAX Avatar capacity.
Step 2: When you generate a 3-minute Avatar video, it deducts 24 total minutes (3 x 8 = 24).
Step 3: If you had 400 Total Minutes, you now have 376 remaining, giving you a new Avatar capacity of 47 minutes.
Is there a maximum length for Custom Avatar videos?

Yes. Due to extreme computational requirements, Avatar videos are strictly capped at exactly 12 minutes per generation. If you write a script longer than 12 minutes, the system will immediately reject it and the generation will fail within the first 2 minutes, preventing you from wasting hours of render time.

Important: Please review your script lengths carefully. As per our Terms of Service, we do not issue quota refunds for jobs that fail because the 12-minute maximum capability limit was deliberately exceeded.
Do unused quotas roll over?

No. By standard policy, all quotas hard-reset on the first day of your new billing cycle. None of the allocations roll over.

Is there a limit on how many personal videos I can upload?

Yes. Each uploaded video is capped at 250MB per file, which is roughly equivalent to 15 minutes of standard video at typical export quality.

To upload your own video, navigate to the Quick Post (create.html) page and look for the "Upload Your Own Video" block, positioned above the Image-to-Video Mode section.

Auto-Deletion: All user-uploaded videos are automatically and permanently deleted from our servers after 14 days, regardless of draft status. Publish your content before this window closes — once published, your video is stored permanently on the social platform.

This feature is available on the Video plan and above. Starter and Articles-Only plan users will see an upgrade prompt.

How long does BDS Growth Engine store my videos?

BDS Growth Engine is a publishing automation tool, not a long-term cloud storage drive. All generated media files follow a strict automated lifecycle:

  • Failed Renders — Immediate: Partial files from any failed video generation are deleted instantly. Credits are automatically refunded.
  • Published Videos — 2 Days: Once a video is published to a connected platform (YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.), the source media file is deleted from our servers within 2 days. Your video lives permanently on the social platform. A permanent publish receipt with a direct link to your live post remains in your Dashboard indefinitely.
  • Inactive Draft Files — 14 Days: Draft files with no activity for 14 days are purged. The draft record stays — you can re-generate from your original script.
  • Orphaned Draft Expiry — 37 Days: Draft records with no activity that remain orphaned (not scheduled, published, or archived) for 37 days will be permanently marked as expired.
  • Uploaded User Videos — 14 Days: Raw videos you upload directly are deleted after 14 days.
📦 Can't find an old published post? Published posts appear in your Published tab for the first 30 days. After 30 days they automatically move to the Archive tab. Click the Archive tab in your Drafts page tab bar to access your complete publish history and “View Post” links at any time.
What is the Media Vault upload limit?

To optimize cloud storage and rendering speeds, all images (JPG or PNG) uploaded to the Media Vault are strictly limited to a maximum size of 3MB per file. Most web-optimized images are well under 1MB.

How does Agency Vault Storage work?

Our platform utilizes a strict Zero-Sum allocation engine. As an Agency Admin, you receive a master pool of resources (e.g., 50MB of Vault Storage).

When you allocate 5MB to a client sub-account, that 5MB is permanently deducted from your personal unallocated pool. Your clients' actual storage usage draws exclusively from their own allocated 5MB, preventing any single client from draining your agency's total limit.

🔐 Staff Privileges & Team Permissions

How does the staff permission system work?

Every staff member operates on a trust ladder. Agency Admins assign granular permission toggles from the Staff page that precisely control which buttons and actions appear on the staff member's Drafts page.

The system has 12 distinct toggles, but the most critical for content workflow are: Create Content, Edit Drafts, Review Drafts, Schedule Posts, and Publish Directly.

📖 Deep Dive: For a full interactive walkthrough of all 12 permissions and recommended team presets, visit the Staff Privileges Guide in the BDS Academy.
What is the "Publish Directly" permission and why is it so important?

"Publish Directly" is the trust switch. It is the single most important permission in the system and determines whether a staff member is supervised or autonomous.

  • Without Publish Directly: All content created by the staff member is automatically routed to the Manager Review tab. They cannot approve drafts. An Admin or Manager must review and approve before anything can be scheduled or published.
  • With Publish Directly: Content goes straight to Pending Review (skipping Manager Review entirely). The staff member can approve, schedule, and publish with full autonomy.
⚠️ Recommendation: Only grant "Publish Directly" to senior, trusted staff members. Start all new hires without it and progressively unlock permissions as they prove content quality.
What does "Review Drafts" let my staff do?

"Review Drafts" allows a staff member to preview draft content and reject low-quality drafts — but it does NOT grant the ability to approve content.

This means an Editor-level staff member can flag bad content and send it back, but cannot push anything forward in the pipeline. The Approve button is exclusively controlled by the "Publish Directly" permission.

What does "Edit Drafts" control?

"Edit Drafts" controls all content modification actions on the Drafts page. Without it, the staff member can only view content — they cannot change anything.

When enabled, it unlocks:

  • ✏️ Edit — Modify draft text and captions
  • 🔄 Regenerate Video — Re-render a video with new parameters
  • ✂️ Edit Video — Open the AI Video Editor to swap scenes, voices, and subtitles
  • 🎬 Generate Video — Convert a script-only draft into a full video
Where does staff-generated content go? (Manager Review)

The routing depends entirely on the "Publish Directly" toggle:

  • Staff WITHOUT "Publish Directly": Content auto-routes to the Manager Review tab. Admin/Manager must approve it.
  • Staff WITH "Publish Directly": Content goes to Pending Review. Staff can self-manage the entire workflow.

The "Manager Review" tab is your centralized inbox for all supervised staff output. Think of it as your quality control checkpoint before anything reaches your clients' social feeds.

What are the recommended permission presets for different roles?

Here are common configurations to get you started:

  • 🌱 Junior Content Creator: Create Content only. All output goes to Manager Review.
  • ✏️ Content Editor: Create Content + Edit Drafts + Review Drafts + Delete Content. Can polish AI output and reject bad drafts, but cannot approve or publish.
  • 🚀 Senior Publisher: Create Content + Edit Drafts + Review Drafts + Publish Directly + Schedule Posts + Delete Content. Full creative autonomy — no manager needed.
  • 🛡️ Operations Manager: All permissions enabled. Equivalent to a co-admin with full budget and staff control.
⚠️ Budget Warning: The "Allocate Resources" and "Manage Autopilot" toggles are highlighted in red on the staff card because they directly impact your agency's billing. Only grant these to people you trust with your budget.

⚠️ Troubleshooting & Errors

My scheduled posts stopped publishing (Ghost Tokens)

If your Autopilot is ON but nothing is hitting your social feeds, your OAuth connection token has likely silently expired. Meta and Google forcefully expire security tokens every 60 days.

  1. Navigate to Setup Platforms (`setup-platforms.html`).
  2. Click Disconnect on the affected platform.
  3. Click Reconnect to refresh the security token.
Instagram Error: "Media container processing failed"

If you see this error, your video successfully reached Meta servers, but Instagram rejected the physical file format. This happens when you try to push a Horizontal (Landscape 16:9) video to Instagram Reels.

Important: You cannot change a video's orientation once it is rendered. You must navigate to Quick Post (`create.html`) and generate an entirely new video, explicitly selecting Vertical (9:16).
LinkedIn/Threads Error: "429 Rate Limit"

A "429 Rate Limit" means the social media network (LinkedIn, Threads, etc.) has temporarily throttled your account for posting too fast or aggressively.

This is a platform-enforced penalty, not a BDS engine issue. Space out your Autopilot settings and wait exactly 24 hours before trying again.

My AI Avatar's lips are slightly out of sync

This happens when the narrating voice speaks faster than the visual lip-engine can track, causing a subtle dubbing effect. To resolve this, open your draft and insert commas ( , ) or periods ( . ) into your text. This forces the AI Voice to slow down and inject natural micro-pauses, allowing the video renderer to track the mouth perfectly.