# Budgets and AI limits

> Set a daily AI limit and a monthly budget, choose when sanda emails you, and see what a budget suspension stops and how to resume.

You have three ways to keep spend in check, and they work differently.

| | What it caps | What happens at the limit |
|---|---|---|
| **Daily AI limit** | AI spend in a day | AI waits until the limit resets. Everything else keeps running |
| **Monthly budget** | Metered spend in a month | Every warehouse in the workspace is suspended until an owner or admin resumes it |
| **Warehouse limits** | One warehouse's storage and compute | Loading pauses and queries are narrowed. Nothing is suspended |

The first two are set in **Settings · Plan & budget**, in the **Budget & alerts** panel. Owners and admins change them. Everyone else can see the meters. Warehouse limits are set per warehouse and covered in [Limits](https://docs.sanda-os.com.au/reference/limits).

## The daily AI limit

Every AI call sanda makes for your workspace counts against the limit: cherry, the passes that learn your data, suggestions, drafts and sanda search indexing. Syncs and scheduled reports do not. The limit is measured in the same dollars as your invoice, so the meter matches the bill.

- **The default is A$5 a day.** A new workspace starts there.
- **Owners and admins can set their own, up to A$50 a day.** Every dollar under the limit is billed to you, so capping it is your call.
- **For more, ask sanda support.** The ceiling above is the most a workspace can set for itself. sanda support can set a higher limit on your account.
- **Lowering is always allowed.** A limit sanda support set above the ceiling can come down, and it survives saving other settings.

### Change it

:::steps
1. **Open the panel.** Go to **Settings · Plan & budget** and find **Budget & alerts**.
2. **Enter a limit.** In **Daily AI limit (AUD)**, type an amount. Leave it empty to use the default.
3. **Save.** Press **Save budget & alerts**.
:::

### At the limit

When today's limit is used up, sanda makes no more AI calls until the limit resets at midnight UTC, which is mid-morning in Sydney. Syncs, reports and your data are unaffected. The message says so, and it says an owner or admin can raise the limit.

The AI ring in the top bar and the **AI today** meter show how much of the day is used. If you set the limit to zero, sanda makes no AI calls for the workspace at all.

By default sanda emails your owners and admins the first time the limit is reached on a given day. Tick or clear **When the day's AI limit is reached** to change that.

## The monthly budget

A monthly budget is a ceiling you set on your own metered spend: storage, compute, sync runs and AI, priced as the invoice will price them. It does not include the platform fee. Type an amount in **Monthly budget (AUD)**. Leave it empty for no budget: the meter then only reports, and nothing suspends.

**This month so far** shows the running total against your budget as a percentage.

### Reminders

Below 100%, a budget only sends emails. Under **Remind me at**, pick 50%, 80% or 90%. The default is 80%. sanda sends one email per threshold per month. If you cross more than one between checks, you get a single email for the highest.

Owners and admins always receive alerts. **Also send to** adds up to ten more addresses, one per line, such as a finance inbox.

Three more switches decide what else sanda emails about:

- when a warehouse passes 80% of a limit, and when it reaches one and loading pauses;
- when the day's AI limit is reached;
- when a scheduled run fails, or pauses itself after failing repeatedly.

**Send alert emails for this workspace** turns all of these off at once, and with them the email at 100% that says the warehouse was suspended and the email saying an agent's action is waiting for approval. The suspension itself still happens, and the banner over every page still says so. **Recent alerts** at the foot of the panel lists what has been sent, and any that could not be delivered, with the reason.

## When the budget is reached

At 100% of the budget, sanda suspends every warehouse in the workspace. sanda checks the month's spend about every quarter of an hour, so a workspace can pass its budget a little before the suspension lands.

**What stops.** Nothing can be queried, loaded, rebuilt or indexed, by anybody or anything: queries, reports, chat, syncs and scheduled runs, and also the feed, agents over MCP, the SQL shell and CSV uploads.

**What stays.** Your data is kept. Its storage keeps being metered, because it is still held.

**What you see.** A banner over every page reads "Your warehouse is suspended: this month's metered spend reached the budget", with the date. Each warehouse card says so, and **Budget & alerts** shows **Warehouse suspended since** that date. Your owners and admins get an email at 100%, unless alert emails are switched off.

**It never lifts on its own.** Not at midnight, not at the start of a new month, and not when you raise the budget. A person has to resume it.

### Resume a suspended warehouse

:::steps
1. **Make room under the budget.** Either raise or remove the budget, or wait until a new month has begun so the month's spend is back under it.
2. **Open the panel.** Go to **Settings · Plan & budget** and find **Budget & alerts**.
3. **Press Resume warehouse.** Only an owner or admin can. sanda confirms with "Resumed. Queries, syncs and scheduled runs are back."
:::

If the month is still at or over the budget, the button is off and the panel says why: raise or remove the budget first, or the warehouse would be suspended again at the next check.

:::caution
A trial that is frozen because its free credit ran out is a different case. **Resume warehouse** does not lift it. Moving to an edition does. See [Free trial](https://docs.sanda-os.com.au/billing/trial).
:::

## Warehouse limits are separate

A warehouse's own storage and compute limits are set under **Data · Warehouse**, with **Limits**. They throttle one warehouse and pause its loading, and never suspend it. Setting them lower than your edition allows is another way to cap a month. See [Limits](https://docs.sanda-os.com.au/reference/limits).

:::links
- [Usage and metering](https://docs.sanda-os.com.au/billing/usage): What the month's total is made of.
- [Limits](https://docs.sanda-os.com.au/reference/limits): Every limit, and what happens at it.
- [Models and usage](https://docs.sanda-os.com.au/cherry/models-and-usage): How cherry spends the daily AI limit.
:::