Control and cost
Budgets and spending limits
Limit spend per API key, per member and per team, with total and repeating limits, plus the daily and monthly caps every organisation has.
Spending limits stop requests before they cost more than you meant. Each is in US dollars and counts every request, whether it runs on credits or on your own provider keys (estimated at catalogue prices).
On an API key
Set when you create a key, or later with Spend limits in the key's menu:
- Total limit: the key stops once it has spent this much. It never resets.
- Repeating limit: a cap that resets on a schedule, every so many hours, days, weeks or months. The period starts with the key's first charged request after the last one ended. A "month" is 30 days.
A key over a limit gets 429 budget_exceeded: "This API key's budget is used up." (or "period budget"). Raise the limit, or wait for the period to end.
On a member
Owners and admins can give each member a budget under Team, with a total and a repeating limit, and a maximum number of API keys. A member's spend is everything their keys spend. Keys they create must fit inside their budget. Over it, their keys get 429 budget_exceeded: "Your budget is used up."
Developer defaults set the budget new developers start with.
On a team (Enterprise)
A team has a per-developer budget and its own access rules. Over it, the message is "Your team's budget is used up."
Organisation caps
Every organisation also has a daily and a monthly spend cap, and a cap on top-ups per 24 hours, set by its trust tier. They rise automatically as the account ages or spends:
| Tier | Reached when the organisation is | /v1/chat/completions per minute | /v1/messages per minute | Spend per day | Spend per month | Top-ups per 24 hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | New | 200 | 200 | $25 | $250 | $100 |
| 1 | 7 days old, or has spent $10 and is 1 day old | 400 | 400 | $100 | $1,000 | $500 |
| 2 | 30 days old, or has spent $100 and is 3 days old | 800 | 800 | $500 | $5,000 | $2,500 |
| 3 | 60 days old, or has spent $1,000 and is 7 days old | 2,000 | 2,000 | $5,000 | $50,000 | $10,000 |
| 4 | 90 days old, or has spent $5,000 and is 14 days old | 4,000 | 4,000 | $15,000 | $200,000 | $20,000 |
Days and months are counted in UTC. Over a cap, requests get 429 spend_cap_reached with the code daily_cap or monthly_cap. See your tier and the next one under Billing → Limits. Enterprise organisations and DevPass have no spend caps. To raise a cap sooner, contact us.
Credits
On credits, a request is refused with 402 insufficient_credits when the balance is empty. Before sending, the gateway also sets aside the most the request could cost (its input plus max_tokens, or 4,096 output tokens if not set), so a request that the balance can't cover is refused rather than run. Turn on Automatic top-up under Billing to avoid running out; see Billing.
Checked against the gateway on 31 October 2026. Something wrong or missing? Tell us.