AI spending caps
Hard per-user spend limits ($/request, $/day, $/month) on AI features, with up-front cost estimates and email alerts.
AI features in outsend run on your own provider key (BYOK): the provider bills you directly, at cost. So a miscalibrated prompt never burns your bill, outsend enforces hard spending caps on every AI request — server-side, so they can't be bypassed.
The three caps
| Cap | Default | Configurable up to |
|---|---|---|
| Per request | $10 | $100 |
| Per day | $10 | $100 |
| Per month | $100 | $1,000 |
Set them in Settings → AI spending caps. Days and months are counted in UTC.
How it works
- Estimate before — before an AI action runs, outsend shows the worst-case cost (your input tokens + the maximum output tokens) and how much budget you have left today and this month.
- Block before overspending — if a request could push you over a cap, it is refused before the provider is ever called. Nothing is spent.
- Track the real cost — after each call, the actual cost (the provider's reported token usage × the model's price) is added to your daily and monthly totals.
- Email alerts — you get an email at 80% of a daily/monthly cap, and again when a cap is reached (AI is paused until it resets).
Models without a known price
Prices come from a public catalog of model prices (~2,700 models). If a model isn't in it (some custom or exotic endpoints), outsend can't compute its cost: the request is allowed and tracked, but not capped, and the UI flags the price as unknown. Mainstream models from every supported provider are priced.
Good to know
- Caps are a safety net on outsend's side — the real bill is always your provider's, and the estimate is indicative.
- Resets are calendar-based: the daily total resets at 00:00 UTC, the monthly total on the 1st.
- Raising a cap takes effect immediately; AI resumes as soon as you're back under it.