upladsHelp CenterLogin

How to set a monthly AI spend cap

Last updated June 10, 2026

A monthly AI spend cap puts a hard ceiling on how much your workspace can spend on AI generation each calendar month. Once the cap is hit, every AI feature — brand voice, vision-based naming detection, ad-copy generation, translation, and optimization — is blocked until the next month. It's the simplest way to keep an unexpected provider bill from creeping up on a busy team. To track spend without a hard limit, see How to track AI usage and estimated cost first.

Setting a monthly USD cap

The cap lives in the AI settings, in the same card where you save your provider keys — because the cap only matters once AI is actually running. See How to set up your AI provider and API keys for that setup.

  1. Open Configuration and go to the AI section.
  2. Find the Monthly AI spend cap panel below your provider settings.
  3. In the Cap (USD per month) field, enter a positive dollar amount — for example, 50.
  4. Click Save.

You'll see a confirmation that the cap was set (for example, "AI cap set to $50/month").

A few things to know:

  • Owner-only. Only the workspace owner can change the cap. Team members see the panel read-only with the note "Only the workspace owner can change the cap." If the whole section looks locked, see Why is configuration greyed out or read-only for me?.
  • Workspace-wide. There is one shared budget for the entire workspace — every team member draws from the same pool.
  • Whole dollars. The field accepts a positive number; non-positive amounts are rejected with "Enter a positive dollar amount."

Viewing current spend vs. cap

Right under the input, the panel shows a live status line so you always know where you stand:

  • With a cap set, it reads "$X.XX of $Y.YY used this month" — your spend so far against the cap.
  • When you're getting close, it also shows the remaining budget, e.g. "($4.20 remaining)".
  • With no cap, it reads "No cap — unlimited spending this month."

Spend is the total cost of every AI generation run by the workspace since the start of the current calendar month.

The near-cap warning and hitting the cap

The status line changes color to give you advance notice:

  • Under 10% of budget left — the line turns amber with a warning icon and shows how much is remaining, so you can raise the cap before anything stops.
  • Cap reached or exceeded — the line turns red and reads "AI features blocked until next month."

Once you're at or over the cap, the next AI action is stopped before it runs and you'll see a message like "Monthly AI limit reached. You've used $50.00 of $50.00 this month. Raise the cap in Settings or wait until next month." To keep working, either raise the cap or wait for the monthly reset. If AI is failing for other reasons, see Why is AI copy generation blocked or failing?.

Note: the cap is checked just before each AI call, so a single in-flight generation can overshoot the limit by a few cents. Spend won't run away — the overshoot is bounded to one generation's cost.

Removing the cap for unlimited spending

To lift the limit entirely:

  1. Open the Monthly AI spend cap panel.
  2. Click No limit.

The status line switches to "No cap — unlimited spending this month," and AI features run without a budget ceiling. You can re-add a cap at any time by entering an amount and clicking Save again.

How the cap resets each month

The cap is tied to the calendar month. Spend accumulates from the first day of the current month, and at the start of each new calendar month the counter resets to $0 automatically — your cap stays the same, but the budget is fresh. There's nothing to reset manually: if AI was blocked because you hit the cap, it becomes available again the moment the new month begins.

Related articles

Related articles