Learn how to set spending caps on your AI agent's Agent Groups to control costs and prevent overspending.
Setting Spending Caps
Spending caps let you control exactly how much your AI agent can spend. They're the primary control for keeping costs predictable.
What is a Spending Cap
A spending cap is a maximum credit limit on an Agent Group. Once the cap is reached, your agent can no longer make tool calls using that Agent Group until you increase the cap or reset it.
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Spending caps protect you from runaway costs. Even if your agent enters a loop or makes more calls than expected, it can never exceed the cap.
Setting a Cap
Open your Agent Group
From the dashboard, go to Control Center → Agent Groups and select the group you want to configure.
Find spending controls
Look for the Spending Cap section in your Agent Group settings.
Set the limit
Enter the maximum number of credits this group can spend. Choose a limit that matches the current tool costs and the amount of experimentation you want to allow.
Save
Click Save to apply the cap. It takes effect immediately.
Cap Strategies
Conservative -- Start with a narrow cap for the tools you are testing. Increase it only after the activity log shows the usage pattern is predictable.
Production -- Size the cap from expected usage and current tool costs. Monitor spending in Agent Activity and adjust based on actual patterns.
Multiple Agent Groups for Different Tasks
A powerful pattern is creating separate Agent Groups for different types of work:
| Agent Group | Tools | Cap Approach | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
| Research | Web search, summarizer | Recurring cap sized to expected daily use | Daily research tasks |
| Content | Image generation, writing tools | Project cap sized to the current tools attached | Content creation projects |
| Testing | Various | Narrow exploratory cap | Trying out new tools |
This gives you granular control over spending by category.
What Happens When the Cap is Reached
When an Agent Group hits its spending cap:
- Your agent receives an error indicating the agent group is exhausted
- No further tool calls can be made with that group
- Your existing results and data are unaffected
- You can increase the cap at any time to resume
Wallet Spending Controls
Most customers only need Agent Group credit caps. If your account also uses x402 wallet features, wallet settings can add separate payment controls:
- Per-transaction limits -- Maximum token amount for a single wallet payment
- Allowed recipients -- Which payment recipients the wallet is allowed to pay
- Wallet pause controls -- A separate way to stop wallet-funded payments without changing Agent Group tool access
Defense in depth
For maximum protection, use Agent Group caps for credit-backed tool usage and wallet controls only for wallet-funded payment flows.
Monitoring Spend vs. Cap
Your Agent Group settings show:
- Current spend -- How much has been used so far
- Remaining -- How much is left before the cap
- Cap utilization -- Percentage of cap used
You can also view this information in the Agent Activity tab alongside your tool call history.
Next Steps
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