Spending Caps and Payment Methods

A credit balance tells you what you have prepaid. Spend controls decide how much of it your organization may use in a month. This guide covers the monthly budget cap, budget alerts and limits for single virtual workers. It also explains what happens when one is reached and how purchases are paid.

Find your spend controls

Open the organization's Billing & Usage screen and find the Spend controls card. It shows Used this month, the Current rate in credits per hour and the Projected by month end total. It also shows your Monthly cap and how many workers can run at once. Months are UTC calendar months.

The organization's owners, and the people they allow to manage billing, can change these controls. An organization that has not chosen a cap can see a notice offering to set one. You can set a cap there or keep no cap.

Set a monthly budget cap

1. Under Monthly budget cap, choose Set a cap.
2. Enter Cap (credits per month) as a whole number of credits.
3. Optionally, enter Alert at (percent of the cap): one to five different percentages between 1 and 100, separated by commas, for example 50, 80, 100.
4. Choose Save.

Choose No cap and Save to remove the cap. When a new organization that has not chosen a cap starts its first credit plan, the cap is set to that plan's monthly credits. You can change it or choose No cap at any time.

The cap applies to container time, including the containers your virtual workers run in. When this month's container spending would pass the cap, a container that is starting is refused. The message says the monthly budget cap is reached and can be raised in Billing. A running container is stopped; a virtual worker in the middle of a step gets up to five minutes to finish it. Raising the cap, or the start of the next month, lets container time start again.

The first time spending reaches an alert threshold in a month, the organization's owners and admins get one notification, in the app and by email. When you raise the cap, thresholds above the current spending can alert again.

Limit a single virtual worker

The card's Workers list shows each virtual worker's monthly limit and what it has used, or No monthly limit. Enter a whole number of credits and choose Set limit, or choose Remove limit. When a worker reaches its limit, the list marks it Monthly limit reached. That worker's container is stopped the same way, and it cannot start again until its limit is raised or the month ends. Other workers keep running within the organization's cap.

How purchases are paid

Credit packages are bought for an organization from Personal Organizations and paid at checkout; Buy Usage Credits walks through it. The purchase confirmation can offer Raise my monthly budget cap by these credits. Keep it selected to add the package's credits to your cap, or clear it to leave the cap unchanged. Prices are on the pricing page, and payment terms are in the Terms.

Getting help

Contact Backbuild support with your organization name, the time of the problem, the message you saw and, for a purchase, its payment reference. Do not include full card numbers, bank account numbers, passwords or verification codes in a support message.

Questions you may have

Is my credit balance a spending limit?
No. The balance is what you have prepaid. The monthly budget cap and worker limits are separate controls you set.

Does buying credits raise my cap?
Only if you keep Raise my monthly budget cap by these credits selected in the purchase confirmation, or edit the cap yourself.

Does a new month refill my balance?
No. A new month restarts the spending counted against your cap and worker limits. Your balance changes only with credits you receive and use.

Where do I check other reasons work is refused?
See Warnings, Caps, and Running Out for allowances, an empty balance and per-class caps.