Spending limits

The spend limit you set on a single message is enforced. For a while it was not: the number was sent to our servers and nothing there read it, and a ceiling you could not see stopped the run instead. That is repaired, and we checked it on a real run with real money rather than in a test.

What it does not do is guarantee a total. The check happens after a step has already been paid for, so a turn stops on the first step that takes it past your number — and the total is your limit plus the cost of that one crossing step. Read the field as “stop as soon as you have gone past this”, never as “never spend more than this”.

And one path still does not have it: work you hand off does not carry your per-turn number. That is a real gap, it is further down this page, and nothing here softens it.

Where you set it

In the panel above the composer — the one headed This run — there is a field labelled “Spend limit for this run — Pauses before it would go over.” It arrives pre-filled at $5.00. Any amount you type has to be $1.00 or more; there is no upper bound.

Take the label’s “before” with a pinch of salt — it stops after the step that went over, for the reason in the next section. The number itself is now genuinely in force.

Clearing the field means no money ceiling for that turn. There is no hidden default behind a blank field any more — the field’s own hint says it plainly: “leave this blank for no limit.” When a number is in force, the line under the composer states it; when the field is blank, that line says no spend limit, and clicking it lets you set one. If you want a ceiling, keep a number in the field.

There is also a standing preference in Settings, under How it works: “Ask before spending more than — Tasks pause and check with you above this amount,” offered as four presets — $0.10, $0.50, $1.00 and $5.00. That is a different control: it sets the default ceiling for new tasks you start from the Tasks screen, when nothing else already caps them. It is a running total across a handed-off job’s steps, not a per-turn ceiling, it never applies to a message you stay for, and changing it does not change a task that is already running — that task keeps the ceiling it started with.

Those numbers are budgets you choose, not prices. What a run actually costs depends on which engine it runs on — Auto, Fast, Smart or Max — so the same limit buys a different amount of work on each. Nothing on this page is a quote.

The step that crosses the line

This is the part worth understanding, because it is the whole difference between a limit and a guarantee.

What a step will cost is not known until it has run, so the ceiling can only be checked after a step has been billed. Three things follow, and all of them show up on receipts:

• A turn does not end at your number. It ends at your number plus whatever the step that crossed it cost.
• How far past depends on what that step was doing. A step that reads several long web pages costs far more than one that writes a short file, so the same limit overshoots by very different amounts on different work. There is no ratio we can give you here that would hold.
• It bounds one turn, not one conversation. A conversation of several turns can spend several times its per-turn ceiling, because each turn starts the count again.

We tested it the direct way: a limit set well below what the job needed, on work that takes several steps. The run was cut off mid-work with nothing delivered, which is the limit doing its job — and the receipt was for more than the limit, which is the crossing step, exactly as described above.

So a low limit is a good way to make a run stop early, and a poor way to fix a total. If the exact figure matters, the receipt is the only record of it.

When the ceiling fires, Else tells you — verbatim: “I stopped here because this turn reached its spending limit for a single turn. You were only charged for the work that actually ran. Ask me to continue and I’ll pick up from what’s already done.” Asking it to continue is the intended move: the next turn starts the count again and picks up from what already exists rather than starting over.

Where it does not reach: work you hand off

Hand a job off and your per-turn number does not travel with it. The turns inside a handed-off job have no per-turn money ceiling of their own. The repair at the top of this page covers the message you stay for. It does not cover this.

What a handed-off job does have is a different limit, and that one is genuinely read: a running total for the job as a whole — $5.00 unless you or your Settings choose another. A task shows its own limit and how much of it has gone, as a percentage, on the task’s result page — next to the running total of what has actually been charged. When the total is found over the limit between steps, the task moves to Needs you and waits for you instead of continuing.

Three qualifications, all real:

• It observes, it does not reserve. What it compares is money already spent. It cannot hold budget back before work starts, and it cannot interrupt a step that is running.
• A run that finishes on its own is never limit-checked at all. The check only applies to work that is still going. If a job completes in one go, however far over it went, the limit never gets a say.
• It is a total, not a per-turn ceiling. The two controls answer different questions, and neither one substitutes for the other.

Else will not ask you to raise the limit on its own behalf. That is enforced on our side, not left to the model’s judgement: a request to increase its own spend limit is rejected before it can reach you.

The honest summary

• On a message you stay for: the limit you set is enforced, per turn — and it stops on the step that crosses it, so the total is your limit plus that step.
• If you clear the field: there is no money ceiling for that turn. Nothing stands in for the number you removed.
• On work you hand off: your per-turn number does not travel, and the turns inside have no per-turn ceiling. The job’s own limit — $5.00 unless you choose another — is a running total, checked between steps against money already spent — so it stops long work after the fact, cannot prevent an overrun, and says nothing about a job that finishes in one expensive push.
• On all of them: the receipt is the record. It is accurate about what you were charged, whatever any limit did or did not do.

What to do with that

• Use the field to stop early, not to pin a total. Set it low on anything exploratory and expect the receipt to land a little past it.
• A blank field really is “no limit.” If you want a ceiling, leave a number in it.
• For long unattended work, set the job’s own limit deliberately and watch the running total against it — the turns inside it are not bounded by anything else.
• Watch the running total, not the limit you set. Check the receipt on the result: the receipt is the record of what happened; the limit is only what you asked for.