Admin tab: Limits (cost budgets & currency)
AdminIn the Administration → Limits tab you set cost budgets: monthly ceilings for estimated AI costs — per user and per model. Once a budget is reached, the next request is refused before the model call. This lets operators cap spend instead of merely observing it. Current costs are shown in the Usage statistics tab.
Master switch
Section titled “Master switch”At the top sits a master switch (UsageLimit:Enabled). It is off by default — then nothing is blocked and behaviour is identical to before. Only when you turn it on do the budgets take effect.
Billing currency
Section titled “Billing currency”Model prices are stored internally in US dollars (the source of truth). On top of that you set a billing currency in which budgets are entered and amounts are displayed:
| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Currency code | e.g. EUR, USD, CHF |
| Symbol | the displayed character, e.g. € |
| USD rate | how much of your currency one US dollar costs (maintained manually) |
There is no automatic exchange-rate lookup — the rate is maintained manually; for ≤ 100 users that is enough. With the defaults (USD / $ / 1.0) everything stays unchanged. The chosen currency appears consistently everywhere: in the Limits tab, in Usage statistics and in the chat’s cost badge.
The three budgets
Section titled “The three budgets”- Global per-user default (
UsageLimit:DefaultMonthlyBudget) — applies to every user without their own value. You set it here in the Limits tab. - Per-user budget — overridable per account in the Users tab. Empty = the user inherits the global default.
- Per-model cap — set in the Models tab next to the prices. Empty = no cap. The cap applies across all users (the sum of that model’s usage over all users). The Limits tab points to the Models tab.
So a user’s effective budget is: their own value, otherwise the global default.
How it is calculated
Section titled “How it is calculated”- Calendar month (UTC). Consumption in the current calendar month is checked; the month boundary is in UTC and may differ from your local time zone at the edges.
- Estimates. Costs are estimates, derived from the stored model prices. A model without a stored price contributes 0 and never blocks.
- Hard block. If current consumption exceeds the budget, the next request is refused before the model call (web and desktop) — no further cost is incurred.
What the user sees
Section titled “What the user sees”When a user (or the model in use) is over budget, on the next send they get a clear notice instead of an answer: that the monthly cost budget has been reached and they should contact their administrator. The request never reaches the model. → Chat
Limits & notes
Section titled “Limits & notes”- Admin-only. Limits, currency and the global default are maintained in Administration only.
- Rate acts retroactively. If you change the USD rate, past USD costs are also reinterpreted in the billing currency — acceptable for an estimate, but good to know.
- Stale prices skew it. Outdated or missing model prices shift the estimated costs; unpriced models escape the limit.
- Desktop autonomy. In autonomous desktop mode the limit is enforced locally only (the user owns the database) — it is not a hard security boundary there.